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Conciliation 


, 


UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA 


FROM   THE    LIBRARY    OF 

PROFESSOR  FELICIEN  VICTOR  PAGET 

BY  BEQUEST  OF  MADAME  PAGET 
NO. 


gftc  .Students'  Series  0f  gngHsli  ©lassies. 


BURKE'S    SPEECH 


ON 


CONCILIATION  ™™  COLONIES 

(MARCH  22,  1775). 


EDITED   BY 


L.   DuPONT  SYLE,  M.A.  (YALE), 

INSTRUCTOR  IN  ENGLISH  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
EDITOR  OF  "  FROM  MILTON  TO  TENNYSON." 


"  Whatever  blemishes  may  be  detected.  Burke 's  magnificent  speeches  stand  abso 
lutely  alone  in  the  language.  They  are,  literally  speaking,  the  only  English  speeches 
which  may  still  be  read  with  profit  'when  the  hearers  and  the  speaker  have  long  been 
turned  to  dust"  —  LESLIE  STEPHEN. 


OF  THE 

[  UNIVERSITY  ) 


LEACH,    SHEWELL,    &   SANBORN, 

BOSTON.     NEW  YORK.     CHICAGO. 
C,t  V?VA   \ 


COPYRIGHT,  1895, 
BY  LEACH,  SHE  WELL,  &  SANBOKN. 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY  C.  J.  PETERS  &  SON. 


PEESSWOBK  UY  BERWICK  &  SMITH. 


TO 

5.  E.  JHoffjtt, 

IN    REMEMBRANCE    OF    HIS    UNWEARIED    EXERTIONS 
FOR    GOOD    GOVERNMENT. 


PREFACE. 


THE  books  to  which  the  editor  of  this  edition  is 
chiefly  indebted  are  mentioned  under  the  heading,  The 
Best  Books  about  Burke  (p.  xxi).  Assistance  has  also 
been  received  from  PAYNE'S  edition  of  the  Conciliation 
Speech,  and  from  Mr.  LESLIE  STEPHEN'S  incomparable 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

To  Professor  BERNARD  MOSES  of  the  University  of 
California,  thanks  are  due  for  valuable  advice  and 
criticism. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH ix 

THE  BEST  BOOKS  ABOUT  BURKE xxiii 

NOTE  ON  THE  ENGLISH  PARLIAMENTARY  SYSTEM     .     .  xxv 

TEXT  OF  THE  SPEECH 1 

NOTES  ON  THE  SPEECH                            91 


EDMUND    BUKKE. 


EDMUND  BURKE  was  born  in  Dublin  in  1728  or  1729,  — 
in  which  year  is  not  known  with  certainty.  His  father 
(a  Protestant)  was  a  lawyer  of  some  local  reputation ; 
his  mother  was  a  Roman  Catholic.  In  his  first  school 
teacher,  one  Abraham  Shackleton,  Burke  had  the  good 
fortune  to  find  a  gentleman,  a  scholar,  and  a  friend. 
With  fond  and  pardonable  exaggeration,  he  attributes 
his  success  in  life  to  the  teachings  of  this  worthy  man. 

Burke  was  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  from  1743  to 
1748  ;  Goldsmith  from  1744  to  1749.  The  young  men 
may  have  known  each  other  at  this  time,  though  we 
have  no  record  of  the  fact ;  we  do  know,  however,  that, 
like  most. men  of  genius,  they  both  disliked  and  neg 
lected  the  narrow  routine  of  the  college  curriculum. 
Burke  in  college  read  omnivorously  in  natural  phi 
losophy,  logic,  metaphysics,  history,  and  poetry ;  it  is 
not  probable  that  he  desired  or  needed  much  tutorial 
guidance  in  acquiring  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  these 
subjects. 

In  1750  Burke  went  to  London  and  entered  at  the 
Temple,  but  was  never  admitted  to  the  bar.  Fortunately 
for  us,  the  green  fields  of  literature  charmed  him  more 


X  EDMUND   BURKE 

than  the  dusty  courts  of  law.  Fortunately,  I  said,  but 
not  so  thought  his  father.  His  solicitor-soul  was  hugely 
grieved  at  the  young  man's  apostasy ;  in  1755  he  with 
drew  his  son's  allowance,  and  Burke  was  left  to  sink  or 
swim  on  the  frail  plank  of  penny-a-lining.  Somehow 
or  other  he  managed  to  support  thereon  not  only  himself, 
but  a  wife,  whom  he  took  unto  himself  in  1756.  The 
same  year  he  published  two  books,  A  Vindication  of 
Natural  Society,  and  A  Philosophical  Inquiry  into  the 
Origin  of  our  Ideas  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful.  The 
Vindication  is  a  satire  written  in  the  style  of  Boling- 
broke,  and  attempts  to  show  that  the  kind  of  arguments 
which  that  writer  uses  against  revealed  religion,  applies 
writh  equal  force  against  "  artificial  "  society,  —  that  is, 
society  as  developed  and  organized  in  Burke's  day.  In 
this  early  paper  we  detect  that  profound  distrust  of 
democracy  which,  in  the  Letters  on  a  -Regicide  Peace, 
degenerated  into  a  Toryism  worthy  of  Tax-collector 
Wordsworth.  The  Philosophical  Inquiry  is  chiefly 
interesting  as  having  given  Lessing  some  suggestions 
for  his  Laokoon.  Mr.  Ruskin  thinks  poorly  of  Burke's 
sesthetics ;  what  would  Burke  have  thought  of  Mr. 
Kuskin's  political  economy  ? 

From  1761  to  1763  Burke  was  in  Ireland  as  private 
secretary  to  Gerard  Hamilton,  chief  secretary  to  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  (Halifax).  This  was  an  unlucky  connec 
tion  —  for  Burke,  as  Hamilton  was  a  small-minded  and 
ungrateful  politician,  quite  unable  to  appreciate  his  sub 
ordinate's  ability.  Burke  had  better  have  been  in  Lon 
don  engaged  in  the  mournful  task  of  writing  articles  for 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  xi 

Dodsley's  Annual  Register  ;  to  this  treadmill  he  returned 
in  1763,  and  toiled  on  for  two  years,  steadily  enlarging 
the  circle  of  his  reputation,  and  beginning  to  number 
among  his  friends  such  men  as  Hume,  Garrick,  Rey 
nolds,  Johnson.  When  Lord  Rockingham  became  Prime 
Minister,  he  made  Burke  his  private  secretary  (June, 
1765  )  ;  in  December  of  this  same  year  Burke  entered 
Parliament  for  the  borough  of  Wendover,  and  in  Jan 
uary,  1766,  delivered  his  maiden  speech.  This  was  a 
brilliant  success  ;  it  was  an  argument  in  favor  of  receiv 
ing  the  petition  sent  to  Parliament  by  the  Stamp-Act 
Congress. 

Lord  Rockingham  was  Prime  Minister  for  little  more 
than  a  year ;  when  he  was  dismissed,  Burke  could  have 
held  office  under  his  successor,  Pitt,  but  he  preferred 
merely  to  retain  his  seat  in  Parliament,  and  to  follow 
the  political  fortunes  of  his  patron.  The  friendship 
thus  cemented  was  broken  only  by  Lord  Rockingham's 
death  sixteen  years  later;  in  his  will  he  directed  his 
executors  to  destroy  all  evidences  of  Burke's  indebted 
ness  to  him.  This  indebtedness  amounted  to  thirty 
thousand  pounds.  Was  ever  politician  so  trusted 
before ! 

It  is  useless  to  disguise  the  fact  that  for  nearly  the 
whole  of  his  long  political  life  Burke  was  overwhelmed 
by  debt.  Of  the  twenty-two  thousand  pounds  which,  in 
1769,  he  agreed  to  pay  for  an  estate  in  Buckinghamshire, 
fourteen  thousand  pounds  were  not  paid  until  fifteen 
years  after  his  death,  and  six  thousand  pounds  were 
paid  by  Lord  Rockingham.  Yet,  after  all,  are  these 


Xll  EDMUND  BURKE. 

facts  as  discreditable  to  Burke  as  to  the  English  people 
to  whose  service  he  devoted  his  life  ?  They  looked  on 
with  indifference  while  a  corrupt  oligarchy  polluted  the 
springs  of  government ;  they  allowed  their  greatest 
orator  to  drink  the  bitter  waters  of  poverty  and  debt, 
while  they  were  paying  that  elegant  vacuity,  Horace 
"Walpole,  £6,000  a  year  for  being  the  son  of  his  father. 

In  the  opening  pages  of  his  Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of 
the  Present  Discontents,  Burke  describes  the  unconstitu 
tional  system  of  a  double  cabinet l  under  which  England 
was  then  misgoverned,  and  to  which  he  attributes  the  fact 
"  that  government  is  at  once  dreaded  and  contemned ; 
that  the  laws  are  despoiled  of  all  their  respected  and 
salutary  terrors;  that  their  inaction  is  a  subject  of 
ridicule,  and  their  exertion  of  abhorrence  ;  that  rank, 
and  office,  and  title,  and  all  the  solemn  plausibilities  of 
the  world,  have  lost  their  reverence  and  effect ;  that 
our  foreign  politics  are  as  much  deranged  as  our 
domestic  economy ;  that  our  dependencies  are  slack 
ened  in  their  affection,  and  loosened  from  their  obedi 
ence  ;  that  we  know  neither  how  to  yield  nor  how  to 
enforce ;  that  hardly  anything  above  or  below,  abroad 
or  at  home,  is  sound  and  entire ;  but  that  disconnection 
and  confusion,  in  offices,  in  parties,  in  families,  in  Parlia 
ment,  in  the  nation,  prevail  beyond  the  disorders  of  any 
former  time  —  these  are  facts  universally  admitted  and 
lamented." 

The  body  of  the  pamphlet  is  devoted  to  the  evil  effects 

1  Compare  the  Kitchen-Cabinet  in  Jackson's  first  Administration. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  Xlll 

of  this  double-cabinet  system  and  to  an  exposition  of 
Burke's  views  —  ultra-conservative  views  we  should  now 
call  them  —  on  the  English  Constitution  ;  the  concluding 
pages  contain  as  good  a  defense  as  has  ever  been  set  up 
for  party  government. 

The  ministry  of  Lord  North,  then  just  entering  upon 
power  (1770),  were  annoyed  by  the  shafts  of  Burke's 
rhetoric,  but  were  much  too  thick-skinned  to  be  seriously 
wounded  by  them.  Perhaps  the  crassness  of  their  peri 
crania  rendered  them  impervious  to  the  infiltration  of 
new  ideas  ;  perhaps  —  but  whatever  the  cause,  intellect 
ual,  physical,  or  immoral,  Burke  moved  them  not.  They 
attempted  no  reforms,  either  in  home  or  foreign  policy ; 
a  few  years'  persistence  in  this  course  resulted  in  Sara 
toga,  Yorktown,  and  the  loss  of  the  American  Colonies. 
During  these  years  Burke's  conduct  was  beyond  praise, 
and  deserves  to  be  held  in  grateful  remembrance  of 
every  American :  from  his  seat  in  Parliament  he  contin 
ually  raised  the  voice  of  protest  and  of  warning  —  but 
it  was  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness.  He 
spoke  to  a  king  whose  political  wrongheadedness  faith 
fully  represented  the  popular  will,  and  to  a  House  of 
Commons  which  had  no  fear  of  hell  before  their  eyes, 
save  a  deficit  in  the  secret-service  supplies.1 

In  1774  Burke  was  returned  to  Parliament  for  Bris 
tol,  then  the  second  city  in  England.  This  seat  he  held 
for  six  years,  failing  of  re-election  because  of  his  refusal 
to  vote  in  accordance  with  certain  sordid  instructions 
from  his  constituents.  On  the  19th  of  April,  1774,  —  just 

1  "  Purs  is  the  erchedeknes  helle,"  seyde  he.  —  Canterbury  Tales,  658. 


XIV  EDMUND  BURKE. 

a  year  before  Lexington,  —  he  delivered  his  speech  on 
American  Taxation,  in  which  he  urged  the  repeal  of  the 
tea-duty ;  on  the  22d  of  March,  1775,  came  the  speech 
on  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies  ;  on  the  3d  of  April, 
1777,  the  immortal  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol  on 
the  Affairs  of  America.  Of  these  three  compositions 
Mr.  John  Morley  has  written  golden  words,  which  it 
would  be  absurd  for  me  to  try  and  burnish.  He  says  :  *  — 

"  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  they  compose  the  most  per 
fect  manual  in  our  literature,  or  in  any  literature,  for  one  who 
approaches  the  study  of  public  affairs,  whether  for  knowledge  or 
for  practice.  They  are  an  example  without  fault  of  all  the  quali 
ties  which  the  critic,  whether  a  theorist  or  an  actor,  of  great 
political  situations  should  strive  by  night  and  by  day  to  possess. 
If  the  subject  with  which  they  deal  were  less  near  than  it  is  to 
our  interests  and  affections  as  free  citizens,  these  three  per 
formances  would  still  abound  in  the  lessons  of  an  incomparable 
political  method.  If  their  subject  were  as  remote  as  the  quarrel 
between  Corinthians  and  Corcyra,  or  the  war  between  Rome 
and  the  Allies,  instead  of  a  conflict  to  which  the  world  owes 
the  opportunity  of  the  most  important  of  political  experiments, 
we  should  still  have  everything  to  learn  from  the  author's  treat 
ment  ;  the  vigorous  grasp  of  masses  of  compressed  detail,  the 
wide  illumination  from  great  principles  of  human  experience, 
the  strong  and  masculine  feeling  for  the  two  great  political 
ends  of  Justice  and  Freedom,  the  large  and  generous  interpre 
tation  of  expediency,  the  morality,  the  vision,  the  noble  temper. 
If  ever,  in  the  fullness  of  time  —  and  surely  the  fates  of  men 
and  literature  cannot  have  it  otherwise  —  Burke  becomes  one 
of  the  half-dozen  names  of  established  and  universal  currency 
in  education  and  in  common  books,  rising  above  the  wayward 
ness  of  literary  caprice  or  [of]  intellectual  fashions,  as  Shake- 

1  Morley's  Burke,  chapter  iv. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH.  XV 

speare  and  Milton  and  Bacon  rise  above  it,  it  [sic]  will  be  the 
mastery,  the  elevation,  the  wisdom  of  these  far-shining  dis 
courses  in  which  the  world  will  in  an  especial  degree  recognize 
the  combination  of  sovereign  gifts  with  beneficent  uses." 

The  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  gave  the 
deathblow  to  the  ministry  of  Lord  North,  and  to  the 
fatuous  policy  of  the  king  upon  which  that  ministry 
leaned.  Lord  Rockingham  became  Prime  Minister  for 
the  second  time  (1782) ;  and  Burke,  who  had  been  the 
brains  and  bone  and  sinew  of  the  Opposition  for  sixteen 
long  years,  who  had  kept  the  Whigs  together  and  shaped 
their  policy,  who  had  written  their  best  pamphlets  and 
made  their  best  speeches,  who  was  allowed  to  have  a 
more  extensive  and  varied  knowledge  of  public  affairs 
than  any  man  of  his  day  —  Burke  was  omitted  from  the 
list  of  cabinet  officers,  and  was  appointed  to  the  compar 
atively  unimportant  post  of  Paymaster  of  the  Forces. 
Here  he  ranked  as  high,  perhaps,  as  an  Assistant  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  would  with  us. 

Lord  Bockingham  died  in  July,  1782,  having  been 
Prime  Minister  a  brief  three  months.  Burke  could  have 
continued  in  office  under  his  successor,  Shelburne ;  but 
he  preferred  to  follow  Fox  into  opposition  —  mistakenly 
as  it  appears,  for  this  jar  shook  to  its  foundations  the 
loosely  cohering  Whig  party,  and  awoke  from  its  coma 
the  corpus  vile  of  that  Court  policy  which  all  good  men 
hoped  had  passed  into  the  stage  of  cadaveric  rigidity. 
Shelburne's  incapacity  seemed  to  prove  at  first  that 
Burke  was  right  in  his  action ;  for  in  April,  1783,  the 
Shelburne  ministry  went  to  pieces.  In  the  new  deal  — 


XVI  EDMUND   BURKE. 

known  as  the  Coalition  Ministry  —  Burke  is  reinstated 
Paymaster  of  the  Forces ;  Fox  becomes  a  Secretary  of 
State,  and  —  who  is  that  fat,  good-natured,  little  man 
who  sits  as  Fox's  colleague  and  under  whom  the  mighty 
Burke  is  now  content  to  serve  ?  We  rub  our  eyes : 
surely  it  is  not  the  much  berated  Lord  North  ?  Yes, 
it  is  indeed  Lord  North.  —  Politics  has  at  times 
made  strange  bed-fellows,  but  never  did  administration- 
blanket  cover  a  more  ill-sorted  couple  than  this. 

"  O,  dumb  "be  passion's  stormy  rage 

When  he  who  might 
Have  lighted  up  and  led  his  age, 
Falls  back  in  night." 

The  life  of  the  Coalition  Ministry  was  short.  They 
fell  (December,  1783)  attempting  to  carry  a  much- 
needed  bill  (the  work  of  Burke  and  Fox)  for  reforming 
the  government  of  India.  The  House  of  Commons,  it  is 
true,  supported  them  by  a  large  majority  ;  but  the  Lords, 
encouraged  by  the  back-stairs  support  of  the  King,  ven 
tured  to  reject  the  bill  by  a  majority  of  nineteen.  Fox 
was  dismissed,  and  the  younger  Pitt  was  made  Prime 
Minister;  Burke  went  out  with  his  friend,  and  never 
again  filled  an  executive  office. 

If  we  ask  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  first  orator  and 
best-informed  politician  of  his  age  never  attained  to  a 
position  for  which  the  brains  of  a  Melbourne  and  a 
Rosebery  have  been  found  sufficient  —  the  answer  will 
be  five-fold.  1.  Burke  was  poor,  and  worse  than  poor, — 
he  was  always  in  debt.  "  Give  a  dog  a  bad  name  and 
hang  him  "  we  say,  with  more  force  than  elegance,  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  xvii 

Burke's  reputation  doubtless  suffered  from  the  common 
opinion  embodied  in  this  homely  proverb.  2.  In  an  old 
society  like  that  of  England,  where  birth  and  family  con 
nections  count  for  much,  Burke  was  severely  handicapped 
by  several  highly  undesirable  relatives  —  a  cousin,  a 
brother,  a  son  —  who  clung  to  the  skirts  of  the  aspiring 
prophet,  and  dragged  him  back  as  he  stood  there,  with 
one  foot  on  the  step  of  the  fiery  chariot  that  was  to  whirl 
him  up  to  the  heaven  of  cabinet  responsibility.  3.  With 
increasing  years  certain  infirmities  of  will  and  temper 
grew  upon  Burke,  and  more  than  once  overmastered  that 
coolness  and  rationality  of  judgment  that  must  be  the 
compass  of  the  successful  politician.  4.  Burke's  mother 
and  wife  were  Roman  Catholics  :  the  discriminations 
which  English  law  then  enforced  against  members  of 
that  church,  these  he  detested  and  opposed  as  heartily 
as  he  did  the  English  attempts  to  tax  the  Colonies  and 
to  plunder  the  natives  of  India.  This  liberal  attitude 
gained  him  no  favor  in  the  eyes  of  a  nation  that  allowed 
no  Roman  Catholic  to  sit  in  Parliament  until  thirty-two 
years  after  Burke's  death,  and  that  as  late  as  1870  taxed 
Roman  Catholics  to  support  a  Protestant  church  in  Ire 
land.  5.  Burke  was  an  Irishman.  I  have  seldom  seen 
an  English  book  where  this  is  referred  to  as  a  reason  for 
Burke's  never  having  been  made  a  Cabinet  minister;  but 
to  a  foreigner  who  studies  the  English  attitude  towards 
Ireland,  this  reason  seems  as  potent,  perhaps,  as  any. 

To  the  question  of  the  English  rule  —  or  rather  mis 
rule  —  in  India,  Burke  had  devoted  many  years  of  study. 


XVlll  EDMUND  BURKE. 

His  moral  indignation  was  roused  at  what  seemed  to 
him  the  wanton  destruction,  by  Clive  and  Hastings,  of  a 
venerable  order  of  society  that  had  by  no  means  outlived 
its  usefulness.  This  indignation  bore  fruit  in  two  mag 
nificent  speeches  :  On  the  Nabob  ofArcot's  Debts  (1785), 
and  The  Impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings  (1788),— 
the  last  mentioned  best  known,  perhaps,  by  that  frag 
ment  which  Macaulay  has  extracted  to  set  in  the  frame 
of  his  gorgeous  rhetoric.  Hastings'  trial  (begun  in 
1786)  dragged  on  for  eight  years,  and  he  was  finally  ac 
quitted,  but  the  moral  victory  remained  with  Burke. 
Writing  in  1840,  Macaulay  said : l 

"During  a  long  course  of  years,  the  English  rulers  of  India, 
surrounded  by  allies  and  enemies  whom  no  engagement  could 
bind,  have  generally  acted  with  sincerity  and  uprightness  ;  and 
the  event  has  proved  that  sincerity  and  uprightness  are  wisdom. 
...  No  fastness,  however  strong  by  art  or  nature,  gives  to  its 
inmates  a  security  like  that  enjoyed  by  the  chief  who,  passing 
through  the  territories  of  powerful  and  deadly  enemies,  is  armed 
with  the  British  guarantee." 

The  shadows  of  the  Indian  mutiny  fall  athwart  this 
delightful  picture  and  dim  its  colors  considerably,  yet 
the  outlines  remain  true,  and  are  doubtless,  on  the  whole, 
representative  of  the  facts.  The  credit  of  preparing  the 
canvas  for  these  outlines  must  ever  be  given  to  Burke. 

No  biography  of  Burke,  however  brief,  can  omit  all 
mention  of  the  famous  Literary  Club  of  which  he  was  a 
member.  Boswell,2  writing  in  1792,  mentions  the  follow- 

1  Essay  on  Lord  Clive.        2  Life  of  Johnson,  chapter  xvi. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  XIX 

ing  (among  others)  as  having  belonged  to  it :  Reynolds, 
Johnson,  Goldsmith,  Garrick,  Adam  Smith,  Bishop 
Percy,  Fox,  Sheridan,  Gibbon,  Sir  William  Jones, 
Windham,  and  last  (but  not,  in  his  own  eyes,  least) 
Boswell.  In  this  assemblage  of  notables,  Burke  had  no 
superior  in  conversational  powers,  and  no  equal  in 
breadth  and  depth  of  general  information.  Johnson's 
two  sayings  about  him  have  been  often  quoted,  but  will 
bear  quoting  again  as  imperishable  tributes  from  one 
great  man  to  another.  "  Burke  is  such  a  man  that,  if 
you  met  him  for  the  first  time  in  the  street,  where  you 
were  stopped  by  a  drove  of  oxen,  and  you  and  he 
stepped  aside  to  take  shelter  but  for  five  minutes,  he'd 
talk  to  you  in  such  a  manner  that,  when  you  parted, 
you  would  say,  '  This  is  an  extraordinary  man.'  "  Upon 
another  occasion,  when  the  doctor  was  ill,  some  one 
happened  to  mention  Burke's  name.  "  That  fellow 
calls  forth  all  my  powers,"  said  the  prostrate  sage; 
"  were  I  to  see  Burke  now,  it  would  kill  me."  Let  us 
also  hear  Goldsmith  on  Burke.  Goldsmith  at  the  Club, 
awkward  and  shy,  twinkled  the  feeblest  star  in  that 
splendid  constellation ;  Goldsmith  at  home  (inspired  by 
a  goose-quill  and  a  tallow-dip)  has  thrown  a  light  on 
Burke's  character  such  as  the  wit  of  neither  Johnson 
nor  of  Burke  himself  could  have  emitted :  — 

"  Here  lies  our  good  Edmund,  whose  genius  was  such, 
We  scarcely  can  praise  it  or  blame  it  too  much ; 
Who,  born  for  the  universe,  narrowed  his  mind, 
And  to  party  gave  up  what  was  meant  for  mankind ; 
Though  fraught  with  all  learning,  yet  straining  his  throat 
To  persuade  Tommy  Townshend  to  lend  him  a  vote; 


XX  EDMUND  BURKE. 

Who,  too  deep  for  his  hearers,  still  went  on  refining, 
And  thought  of  convincing  while  they  thought  of  dining: 
Though  equal  to  all  things,  for  all  things  unfit; 
Too  nice  for  a  statesman,  too  proud  for  a  wit; 
For  a  patriot,  too  cool ;  for  a  drudge,  disobedient ; 
And  too  fond  of  the  right  to  pursue  the  expedient."  1 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Burke  was  by  temperament  and 
early  conviction  a  Conservative,  and  that  the  experiences 
of  his  political  life  had  deepened  and  strengthened  this 
conservatism.  It  is  easy,  therefore,  to  understand  the 
distrust  with  which  he  watched  the  beginnings  of  the 
revolutionary  movement  in  France;  it  is  less  easy  to 
understand  —  and  impossible  to  forgive  —  the  vindictive 
and  frenzied  violence  with  which  he  opposed  the  devel 
opment  of  that  movement.  In  the  Reflections  on  the 
French  Revolution  (1790),  Burke's  horror  at  the  uncon 
stitutional  proceedings  of  the  French  Assembly  blinded 
him  to  the  terrible  evils  and  abuses  which  made  such 
proceedings  necessary,  —  necessary,  if  France  were  not 
to  die,  strangled  by  the  bandit-clutch  of  her  monarchy, 
her  aristocracy  (alas,  poor  word ! ),  and  her  clergy. 
Burke  saw  the  old  order  changing  and  giving  place 
to  new ;  this  new  order  —  the  democratic  —  seemed  to 
him  no  better  than  a  foundation  of  sand  whereon  to 
rear  the  temple  of  society.  He  doubtless  thought, 
therefore,  that  he  was  doing  God  service  when  he  called 
upon  the  English  to  wage  a  war  of  extermination  and 
revenge  upon  France,  or,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  I 
speak  it  emphatically  and  with  a  desire  that  it  should 

1  Goldsmith's  Retaliation,  29-42. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  xxi 

be  marked  [we  must  contend]  in  a  long  war."  *  This 
sentence  Buckle  very  justly  characterizes  as  "the  most 
horrible  ever  penned  by  an  English  politician."  It  is 
sad  and  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  this  is  the 
same  Burke  who  wrote,  in  1777  :  "  The  poorest  being 
that  crawls  on  earth,  contending  to  save  itself  from 
injustice  and  oppression,  is  an  object  respectable  in  the 
eyes  of  God  and  man."  And  again  :  "  General  rebellions 
and  revolts  of  a  whole  people  never  were  encouraged, 
now  or  at  any  time.  They  are  always  provoked" 

Burke's  attitude  towards  the  French  Kevolution 
brought  him  many  mortifications,  among  them  the  ap 
proval  of  King  George.  It  cost  him  also  the  friendship 
of  Fox,  Sheridan,  and,  indeed,  one  might  almost  say  of 
nearly  every  public  man  in  England  whose  friendship 
was  worth  having.  As  time  went  on  his  feeling  grew 
more  and  more  intense ;  from  the  measured  tone  of  dig 
nified  argumentation  he  passed  to  the  uncontrollable 
scream  of  passion ;  in  the  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the 
National  Assembly  (1791),  and  in  the  Letters  on  a  Regi 
cide  Peace  (some  of  them  not  published  till  after  his 
death),  we  find  passages  worthy  the  worst  days  of  that 
Irish  Parliament  of  whom  Swift  so  touchingly  wrote  :  — 

"  May  their  God,  the  Devil,  confound  them!  " 

Fox  declared,  with  equal  wit  and  wisdom,  that  it  was 
lucky  for  Burke  that  he  took  the  royal  side  in  the 
Revolution ;  had  he  taken  the  other  side,  his  violence 
would  certainly  have  got  him  hanged. 

1  The  Italics  are  Burke's. 


XXIV  EDMUND  BURKE. 

The  teacher  who  has  mastered  these  four  studies  will  find  little 
of  value  in  the  critiques  of  earlier  writers  upon  Burke.  Rather, 
then,  as  literary  curiosities  than  as  substantial  contributions  to 
thought,  are  mentioned  the  following  :  De  Quincey's  Essays  on 
Ehetoric  and  on  Schlosser's  Literary  History  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century ;  Hazlitfs  Essay  on  the  Character  of  Burke ;  Sir 
Joseph  Napier's  Lecture  on  Burke.  References  to  Burke  will 
be  found  scattered  through  Boswell,  The  Diary  of  Madame 
D'Arblay,  and  Macaulay's  Essays ;  consult  the  Indexes  to  these 
works. 

The  latest  writer  on  Burke  is  Augustin  Birrell  in  his  Obiter 
Dicta,  Second  Series.  While  it  is  impossible  to  take  Mr.  Birrell 
seriously  as  a  critic,  he  is  certainly  a  delightful  humorist,  and 
should  be  read  as  such. 


NOTE   ON   THE   ENGLISH   PARLIAMENTARY 
SYSTEM. 


THE  English  system  of  Parliamentary  Government 
differs  in  so  many  ways  from  our  system  of  Congres 
sional  Government,  that  the  young  student  of  Burke  may 
find  it  helpful  to  have  the  details  of  the  former  briefly 
explained  here. 

In  the  English  system  there  is  no  such  divorce  be 
tween  the  Legislative  and  the  Executive  as  the  consti 
tution-makers  effected  in  our  system.  The  Cabinet 
(Executive)  consists  of  some  twelve  or  fifteen  officials 
chosen  from  the  political  party  that  commands  a  major 
ity  in  the  House  of  Commons  (Legislative)  ;  the  cabinet, 
therefore,  is  practically  a  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Members  of  the  Cabinet  may  be  selected 
from  the  House  of  Lords,  —  a  few  invariably  are ;  but 
it  is  the  political  complexion  of  the  House  of  Commons 
that  determines  the  make-up  of  the  Cabinet.  The 
Prime  Minister  is  appointed  nominally  by  the  Crown ; 
practically  he  is  selected  by  the  consensus  of  the  influ 
ential  politicans  in  his  own  party.  The  other  members 
of  the  Cabinet  are  also  appointed  nominally  by  the 
Crown;  but  practically  by  the  Prime  Minister,  after 
consultation  with  his  party  friends. 


xxvi  EDMUND  BURKE. 

Upon  the  Cabinet  rests  the  responsibility  of  initiating 
all  legislation  necessary  for  the  successful  administration 
of  government.  Authority  and  responsibility  are  thus 
centered  in  one  and  the  same  party ;  this  excellent  prin 
ciple  is  unfortunately  lacking  (except  by  rare  chance)  in 
our  system.  When  the  Cabinet  fails  to  carry  through 
the  House  of  Commons  any  important  measure,  one  of 
two  courses  is  open  to  them  :  1.  They  may  resign  at 
once,  and  hand  over  the  responsibility  of  administration 
to  the  party  that  has  beaten  them  by  obtaining  a  major 
ity  vote  in  the  House  of  Commons.  2.  If  the  Cabinet 
feel  that  the  vote  in  the  House  does  not  represent  the 
will  of  the  nation,  they  will  advise  (i.e.,  authoritatively 
request)  the  Crown  to  dissolve  Parliament  and  issue 
writs  for  a  new  election.  If  the  new  election  results  in 
leaving  the  ministerial  party  still  in  minority,  they  will 
at  once  resign  and  hand  over  their  administrative  duties 
to  the  Opposition. 

Every  member  of  the  Cabinet  must  be  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Lords  or  of  the  House  of  Commons,  as  he 
is  expected  to  be  present  at  the  sessions  of  the  Houses  in 
order  to  answer  questions  which  may  be  asked  him  by 
any  member  on  matters  of  public  policy.  Yet  no  mem 
ber  of  the  House  of  Commons  may  accept  an  office  from 
the  Crown  without  thereby  losing  his  seat  as  member  of 
the  House.1  Hence  we  behold  the  curious  spectacle  of 
a  man  being  elected  to  the  House  of  Commons,  accept 
ing  a  Cabinet  office,  and  immediately  going  back  to  his 
constituency  for  re-election.  Should  he  fail  of  this 

1  Compare  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Article  I.,  Section  vi.,  §  '2. 


THE  ENGLISH  PARLIAMENTARY  SYSTEM,      xxvii 

re-election,    he    is,  of   course,  ineligible    for    the    Cab 
inet. 

Such,  in  very  meager  outline,  is  the  working  of  the 
English  system  to-day.  The  Crown  has  little  power, 
and  the  Lords  have  sunk  into  comparative  insignificance. 
No  ministry  would  think  of  resigning  on  account  of  an 
adverse  vote  in  that  House.  In  Burke's  time  the  Crown 
exercised  an  active  and  almost  invariably  mischievous 
influence.  If  the  policy  of  the  ministers  was  displeasing 
to  the  King,  he  considered  himself  justified  in  dismissing 
them  whenever  he  could  obtain  a  vote  adverse  to  them 
in  either  House.  For  an  instance  of  this,  see  the  account 
of  the  fall  of  the  Coalition  Ministry  in  1783  (p.  xiv.  in 
the  biographical  sketch  of  Burke). 


(  UNIVERSITY  ) 


SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

ON  MOVING  HIS   RESOLUTIONS    FOR   CONCILIATION    WITH  THE 
COLONIES,   MARCH  22,   1775. 


I  HOPE,  Sir,  that,  notwithstanding  the  austerity  of  the 
Chair,  your  good-nature  will  incline  you  to  some  degree 
of  indulgence  towards  human  frailty.  You  will  not 
think  it  unnatural  that  those  who  have  an  object  de 
pending,  which  strongly  engages  their  hopes  and  fears,  5 
should  be  somewhat  inclined  to  superstition.  As  I 
came  into  the  House  full  of  anxiety  about  the  event  of 
my  motion,  I  found,  to  my  infinite  surprise,  that  the 
grand  penal  Bill,  by  which  we  had  passed  sentence  on 
the  trade  and  sustenance  of  America,  is  to  be  returned  10 
to  us  from  the  other  House.  I  do  confess  I  could  not 
help  looking  on  this  event  as  a  fortunate  omen.  I  look 
upon  it  as  a  sort  of  providential  favor,  by  which  we 
are  put  once  more  in  possession  of  our  deliberative 
capacity,  upon  a  business  so  very  questionable  in  its  15 
nature,  so  very  uncertain  in  its  issue.  By  the  return  of 
this  Bill,  which  seemed  to  have  taken  its  flight  forever, 
we  are  at  this  very  instant  nearly  as  free  to  choose  a 
plan  for  our  American  Government  as  we  were  on  the 

1 


2  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

first  day  of  the  session.  If,  Sir,  we  incline  to  the  side 
of  conciliation,  we  are  not  at  all  embarrassed  (unless  we 
please  to  make  ourselves  so)  by  any  incongruous  mix 
ture  of  coercion  and  restraint.  We  are  therefore  called 
5  upon,  as  it  were  by  a  superior  warning  voice,  again  to 
attend  to  America ;  to  attend  to  the  whole  of  it  to 
gether,  and  to  review  the  subject  with  an  unusual -de 
gree  of  care  and  calmness. 

Surely  it  is  an  awful  subject";  or  there  is  none  so  on 

10  this  side  of  the  grave.  When  I  first  had  the  honor  of  a 
seat  in  this  House,  the  affairs  of  that  continent  pressed 
themselves  upon  us,  as  the  most  important  and  most 
delicate  object  of  Parliamentary  attention.  My  little 
share  in  this  great  deliberation  oppressed  me.  I  found 

15  myself  a  partaker  in  a  very  high  trust;  and  having  no 
sort  of  reason  to  rely  on  jbhe  strength  of  mv  natural 
abilities  for  the !  proper ^execu^^n  _oj_^tliaiJir_u^  I  was 
obliged  to  take  more  than  common  pains  to  instruct  my 
self  in  everything  which  relates  to  our  Colonies.  I  was 

20  not  less  under  the  npc.pssity_nf  jFnrpiipg  somfi  fiyp.d  klpas 
concerning  the  general  policy  of  foe  Britjs^  Empire. 
Something  of  this  sort  seemed  to  be  indispensable,  in 
order,  amidst  so  vast  a  fluctuation  of  passions  and  opin 
ions,  to  concenter  my  thoughts,  to  ballast  my  conduct, 

25  to  preserve  me  from  being  blown  about  by  every  wind 
of  fashionable  doctrine.  I.  really  did  not  think  it  safe 
or  manly  to  have  fresh  principles  to  seek  upon  every 
fresh  mail  which  should  arrive  from  America. 

At  that  period  I  had  the  fortune  to  find  myself  in 
perfect  concurrence  with  a  large  majority  in  this  House. 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.        3 

Bowing  under  that  high  authority,  and  penetrated  with 
the  sharpness  and  strength  of  that  early  impression, 
I  have  continued  ever  since,  without  the  least  devia 
tion,  in  my  original  sentiments.  Whether  this  be  owing 
to  an  obstinate  perseverance  in  error,  or  to  a  religious  5 
adherence  to  what  appears  to  me  truth  and  reason,  it 
is  in  your  equity  to  judge. 

Sir,  Parliament  having  an  enlarged  view  of  objects, 
made,  during  this  interval,  more  frequent  changes  in 
their  sentiments  and  their  conduct,  than  could  be  justi-  10 
fied  in  a  particular  person  upon  the  contracted  scale  of 
private  information.  But  though  I  do  not  hazard  any 
thing  approaching  to  a  censure  on  the  motives  of  for 
mer  Parliaments  to  all  those  alterations,  one  fact  is 
undoubted,  —  that  under  them  the  state  of  America  has  15 
been  kept  in  continual  agitation.  Everything  adminis 
tered  as  remedy  to  the  public  complaint,  if  it  did  not 
produce,  was  at  least  followed  by,  a  heightening  of  the 
distemper ;  until,  by  a  variety  of  experiments,  that  im 
portant  country  has  been  brought  into  her  present  situa-  20 
tion;  —  a  situation  which  I  will  not  miscall,  which  I 
dare  not  name,  which  I  scarcely  know  how  to  compre 
hend  in  the  terms  of  any  description. 

In  this  posture,  Sir,  things  stood  at  the  beginning  of 
the  session.  About  that  time  a  worthy  member  of  25 
great  Parliamentary  experience,  who,  in  the  year  1766, 
filled  the  chair  of  the  American  Committee  with  much 
ability,  took  me  aside ;  and,  lamenting  the  present  as 
pect  of  our  politics,  told  me,  things  were  come  to  such 
a  pass,  that  our  former  methods  of  proceeding  in  the 


4  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

House  would  be  no  longer  tolerated.  That  the  public 
tribunal  (never  too  indulgent  to  a  long  and  unsuccessful 
opposition)  would  now  scrutinize  our  conduct  with  un 
usual  severity.  That  the  very  vicissitudes  and  shift- 
5  ings  of  Ministerial  measures,  instead  of  convicting  their 
authors  of  inconstancy  and  want  of  system,  would  be 
taken  as  an  occasion  of  charging  us  with  a  predeter 
mined  discontent,  which  nothing  could  satisfy;  whilst 
we  accused  every  measure  of  vigor  as  cruel,  and  every 

10 -proposal  of  lenity  as  weak  and  irresolute.  The  public, 
he  said,  would  not  have  patience  to  see  us  play  the 
game  out  with  our  adversaries  :  we  must  produce  our 
hand.  It  would  be  expected  that  those  who  for  many 
years  had  been  active  in  such  affairs  should  show  that 

15  they  had  formed  some  clear  and  decided  idea  of  the 
principles  of  colony  government,  and  were  capable  of 
drawing  out  something  like  a  platform  of  the  ground 
which  might  be  laid  for  future  and  permanent  tran 
quillity. 

20  I  felt  the  truth  of  what  my  honorable  friend  repre 
sented,  but  I  felt  my  situation  too.  His  application 
might  have  been  made  with  far  greater  propriety  to 
many  other  gentlemen.  No  man  was  indeed  ever  bet 
ter  disposed,  or  worse  qualified,  for  such  an  undertaking, 

25  than  myself.  Though  I  gave  so  far  into  his  opinion 
that  I  immediately  threw  my  thoughts  into  a  sort  of 
Parliamentary  form,  I  was  by  no  means  equally  ready 
to  produce  them.  It  generally  argues  some  degree  of 
natural  impotence  of  mind,  or  some  want  of  knowledge 
of  the  world,  to  hazard  plans  of  government,  except 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.        5 

from  a  seat  of  authority.  Propositions  are  made,  not 
only  ineffectually,  but  somewhat  disreputably,  when  the 
minds  of  men  are  not  properly  disposed  for  their  recep 
tion  ;  and  for  my  part,  I  am  not  ambitious  of  ridicule, 
not  absolutely  a  candidate  for  disgrace.  5 

Besides,  Sir,  to  speak  the  plain  truth,  I  have  in  gen 
eral  no  very  exalted  opinion  of  the  virtue  of  paper  gov 
ernment,  nor  of  any  politics  in  which  the  plan  is  to  be 
wholly  separated  from  the  execution.  But  when  I  saw 
that  anger  and  violence  prevailed  every  day  more  and  10 
more,  and  that  things  were  hastening  towards  an  incur 
able  alienation  of  our  Colonies,  I  confess  my  caution 
gave  way.  I  felt  this  as  one  of  those  few  moments  in 
which  decorum  yields  to  a  higher  duty.  Public  calamity 
is  a  mighty  leveler ;  and  there  are  occasions  when  any,  15 
even  the  slightest,  chance  of  doing  good  must  be  laid 
hold  on,  even  by  the  most  inconsiderable  person. 

To  restore  order  and  repose  to  an  empire  so  great  and 
so  distracted  as  ours,  is,  merely  in  the  attempt,  an  un 
dertaking  that  would  ennoble  the  flights  of  the  highest  20 
genius,  and  obtain  pardon  for  the  efforts  of  the  meanest 
understanding.  Struggling  a  good  while  with  these 
thoughts,  by  degrees  I  felt  myself  more  firm.  I  derived, 
at  length,  some  confidence  from  what  in  other  circum 
stances  usually  produces  timidity.  I  grew  less  anxious,  25 
even  from  the  idea  of  my  own  insignificance.  For,  j  udg- 
ing  of  what  you  are,  by  what  you  ought  to  be,  I  per 
suaded  myself  that  you  would  not  reject  a  reasonable 
proposition,  because  it  had  nothing  but  its  reason  to 
recommend  it.  On  the  other  hand,  being  totally  desti- 


6  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

tute  of  all  shadow  of  influence,  natural  or  adventitious, 
I  was  very  sure,  that,  if  my  proposition  were  futile  or 
dangerous,  if  it  were  weakly  conceived  or  improperly 
timed,  there  was  nothing  exterior  to  it,  of  power  to  awe, 
5  dazzle,  or  delude  you.  You  will  see  it  just  as  it  is,  and 
you  will  treat  it  just  as  it  deserves. 

The  proposition  is  Peace.  Xot  Peace  through  the 
medium  of  war ;  not  Peace  to  be  limited  through  the 
labyrinth  of  intricate  and  endless  negotiations;  not 

10  Peace  to  arise  out  of  universal  discord,  fomented,  from 
principle,  in  all  parts  of  the  empire ;  not  Peace  to  de- 
pend  on  the  juridical  determination  of  perplexing  ques 
tions,  or  the  precise  marking  the  shadowy  boundaries 
of  a  complex  government.  It  is  simple  Peace,  sought 

15  in  its  natural  course  and  in  its  ordinary  haunts ;  it  is 
Peace  sought  in  the  spirit  of  Peace  and  laid  in  princi 
ples  purely  pacific.  I  propose,  by  removing  the  ground 
of  the  difference,  and  by  restoring  the  former  unsi(S2)ect- 
ing  confidence  of  tJ/e  Colon  it's  in  tJic  Mother  Country,  to 

20  give  permanent  satisfaction  to  your  people,  and  (far 
from  a  scheme  of  ruling  by  discord)  to  reconcile  them 
to  each  other  in  the  same  act,  and  by  the  bond  of  the 
very  same  interest  which  reconciles  them  to  British 
Government. 

25  My  idea  is  nothing  more.  Refined  policy  ever  has 
been  the  parent  of  confusion,  and  ever  will  be  so.  as  long 
as  the  world  endures.  Plain  good  intention,  which  is 
as  easily  discovered  at  the  first  view,  as  fraud  is  surely 
detected  at  last,  is,  let  me  say,  of  no  mean  force  in  the 
government  of  mankind.  Genuine  simplicity  of  heart 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.         7 

is  a  healing  and  cementing  principle.  My  plan,  there 
fore,  being  formed  upon  the  most  simple  grounds  ima 
ginable,  may  disappoint  some  people,  when  they  hear  it. 
It  has  nothing  to  recommend  it  to  the  pruriency  of 
curious  ears.  There  is  nothing  at  all  new  and  captivat-  5 
ing  in  it.  It  has  nothing  of  the  splendor  of  the  project 
which  has  been  lately  laid  upon  your  table  by  the  Noble 
Lord  in  the  Blue  Ribbon.  It  does  not  propose  to  fill 
your  lobby  with  squabbling  Colony  agents,  who  will 
require  the  interposition  of  your  mace,  at  every  instant,  10 
to  keep  the  peace  amongst  them.  It  does  not  institute 
a  magnificent  auction  of  finance,  where  captivated  prov 
inces  come  to  general  ransom  by  bidding  against  each 
other,  until  you  knock  down  the  hammer,  and  determine 
a  proportion  of  payments  beyond  all  the  powers  of  15 
algebra  to  equalize  and  settle. 

The  plan  which  I  shall  presume  to  suggest  derives, 
however,  one  great  advantage  from  the  proposition  and 
registry  of  that  Noble  Lord's  project.     The  idea  of  con 
ciliation  is  admissible.     First,  the  House,  in  accepting  20 
the  resolution  moved  by  the  Noble  Lord,  has  admitted, 
notwithstanding   the   menacing   front  of   our  Address,-, 
notwithstanding  our  heavy  Bills  of  Pains  and  Penalties, 
that  we  do  not  think  ourselves  precluded  from  all  ideas 
of  free  grace  and  bounty.  25 

The  House  has  gone  farther ;  it  has  declared  concilia 
tion  admissible,  previous  to  any  submission  on  the  part 
of  America.  It  has  even  shot  a  good  deal  beyond  that 
mark,  and  has  admitted  that  the  complaints  of  our 
former  mode  of  exerting  the  right  of  taxation  were  not 


8  SPEECH   OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

wholly  unfounded.     That  right  thus  exerted  is  allowed 
to  have  something  reprehensible   in   it,  something  un 
wise  or  something  grievous,  since,  in  the  midst  of  our 
heat  and  resentment,  we,  of  ourselves,  have  proposed 
5  a  capital  alteration ;    and,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  what 
seemed  so  very  exceptionable,  have  instituted  a  mode 
that  is  altogether  new  ;  one  that  is,  indeed,  wholly  alien 
from  all  the  ancient  methods  and  forms  of  Parliament. 
The  principle  of  this  proceeding  is  large  enough  for 

10  my  purpose.  The  means  proposed  by  the  Noble  Lord 
for  carrying  his  ideas  into  execution,  I  think,  indeed, 
are  very  indifferently  suited  to  the  end,  and  this  I 
shall  endeavor  to  show  you  before  I  sit  down.  But  for 
the  present  I  take  my  ground  on  the  admitted  prin- 

15  ciple.  I  mean  to  give  peace.  Peace  implies  reconcilia 
tion  ;  and,  where  there  lias  been  a  material  .dispute, 
reconciliation  does,  in  a  manner,  always  imply  con 
cession  on  the  one  part  or  on  the  other.  In  this  state 
of  things  I  make  no  difficulty  in  affirming  that  the  pro- 

20  posal  ought  to  originate  from  us.  Great  and  acknowl- 
edged  force  is  not  impaired,  either  in  effect  or  in 
opinion,  by  an  unwillingness  to  exert  itself.  The 
superior  power  may  offer  peace  with  honor  and  with 
safety.  Such  an  offer  from  such  a  power  will  be 

25  attributed  to  magnanimity.  But  the  concessions  of  the 
weak  are  the  concessions  of  fear.  When  such  a  one  is 
disarmed,  he  is  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  his  superior  ; 
and  he  loses  forever  that  time  and  those  chances  which, 
as  they  happen  to  all  men,  are  the  strength  and  re 
sources  of  all  inferior  power. 


O^  CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.        9 

The  capital  leading  questions  on  which  you  must  this 
day  decide  are  these  two  :  Firsts  whether  you  ought  to 
concede  ;  and  secondly,  what  your  concession  ought  to 
be.  On  the  first  of  these  questions  we  have  gained  (as 
I  have  just  taken  the  liberty  of  observing  to  you)  some  5 
ground.  But  I  am  sensible  that  a  good  deal  more  is 
still  to  be  done.  Indeed,  .Sir,  to  enable  us  to  determine 
both  on  the  one  and  the  other  of  these  great  questions 
with  a  firm  and  precise  judgment,  I  think  it  may  be 
necessary  to  consider  distinctly  the  true  nature  and  the  10 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  object  which  we  have 
before  us.  Because  after  all  our  struggle,  whether  we 
will  or  not,  we  must  govern  America  according  to  that 
nature  and  to  those  circumstances,  and  not  according  to 
our  own  imaginations,  nor  according  to  abstract  ideas  of  15 
right  ;  by  no  means  according  to  mere  general  theories 
of  government,  the  resort  to  which  appears  to  me,  in  our 
present  situation,  no  better  than  arrant  trifling.  I  shall 
therefore  endeavor,  with  your  leave,  to  lay  before  you 
some  of  the  most  material  of  these  circumstances  in  as  20 
full  and  as  clear  a  manner  as  I  am  able  to  state  them. 


The  first  thing  that  we  have  to  consider  with  regard 
to  the  nature  of  the  object  is  the  number  of  people  in 
the  Colonies.  I  have  taken  for  some  years  a  good  deal 
of  pains  on  that  point.  I  can  by  no  calculation  justify  25 
myself  in  placing  the  number  below  two  millions  of 
inhabitants  of  our  own  European  blood  and  color;  be 
sides  at  least  five  hundred  thousand  others,  who  form 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  strength  and  opulence  of 


10  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

the  whole.  This,  Sir,  is,  I  believe,  about  the  true  num 
ber.  There  is  no  occasion  to  exaggerate,  where  plain 
truth  is  of  so  much  weight  and  importance.  But 
whether  I  put  the  present  numbers  too  high  or  too  low, 
5  is  a  matter  of  little  moment.  Such  is  the  strength  with 
which  population  shoots  in  that  part  of  the  world  that, 
state  the  numbers  as  high  as  we  will,  whilst  the  dispute 
continues  the  exaggeration  ends.  Whilst  we  are  discuss 
ing  any  given  magnitude,  they  are  grown  to  it.  Whilst 

10  we  spend  our  time  in  deliberating  on  the  mode  of  gov 
erning  two  millions,  we  shall  find  we  have  millions  more 
to  manage.  Your  children  do  not  grow  faster  from 
infancy  to  manhood,  than  they  spread  from  families  to 
communities,  and  from  villages  to  nations. 

15  I  put  this  consideration  of  the  present  and  the  grow 
ing  numbers  in  the  front  of  our  deliberation ;  because, 
Sir,  this  consideration  will  make  it  evident  to  a  blunter 
discernment  " tliaiT~youfs,  tJTat~no  partial,  narrow,  con- 
"tracted,  pinched,  occasional  system  will  be  at  all  suitable 

20  to  such  an  object.  It  will  show  you  that  it  is  not  to 
be  considered  as  one  of  those  minima  which  are  out  of 
the  eye  and  consideration  of  the  law  ;  not  a  paltry  ex 
crescence  of  the  state  ;  not  a  mean  dependant,  who  may 
be  neglected  with  little  damage,  and  provoked  with  little 

25  danger.  It  will  prove  that  some  degree  of  care  and 
caution  is  required  in  the  handling  such  an  object;  it 
will  show  that  you  ought  not,  in  reason,  to  trifle  with  so 
large  a  mass  of  the  interests  and  feelings  of  the  human 
race.  You  could  at  no  time  do  so  without  guilt ;  and  be 
assured  you  will  not  be  able  to  do  it  long  with  impunity. 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      11 

But  the  population  of  this  country,  the  great  and 
growing  population,  though  a  very  important  considera 
tion,  will  lose  much  of  its  weight,  if  not  combined  with 
other  circumstances.  The  commerce  of  your  Colonies 
is  out  of  all  proportion  beyond  the  numbers  of  the  5 
people.  This  ground  of  their  commerce  indeed  has 
been  trod  some  days  a^o,  and  with  -Teat  ability,  by 
a  distinguished  person,  at  your  bar.  This  gentleman, 
after  thirty-five  years  —  it  is  so  long  since  he  first  ap 
peared  at  IKe  same  place  to  plead  for  the  commerce  of  10 
Great  Britain  —  has  come  again  before  you  to  plead  the 
same  cause,  without  any  other  effect  of  time  than  that, 
to  the  fire  of  imagination  and  extent  of  erudition  which 
even  then  marked  him  as  one  of  the  first  literary  char 
acters  of  his  age,  he  has  added  a  consummate  knowledge  15 
in  the  commercial  interest  of  his  country,  formed  by 
a  long  course  of  enlightened  and  discriminating  expe 
rience. 

Sir,  I  should  be  inexcusable  in  coming  after  such  a 
person  with  any  detail,  if  a  grea.t  part  of  tha  members  20 
who  now  fill  the  Hon<fft  frffrfl  no^  ^ft  misfortune  tn  be 
absent  when  he  appeared  at  your  bar.     Besides,  Sir,  I 
propose  to  take  the  matter  at  periods  of  time  somewhat 
different  from  his.     There  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  point 
of  view,  from  whence,  if  you  will  look  at  the  subject,  25 
it  is  impossible  that  it  should  not  make  an  impression 
upon  you. 

I  have  in  my  hand  two  accounts  :  one  a  comparative 
state  of  the  export  trade  of  England  to  its  Colonies,  as 
it  stood  in  the  year  1704,  and  as  it  stood  in  the  year 


12  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

1772 ;  the  other  a  state  of  the  export  trade  of  this 
country  to  its  Colonies  alone,  as  it  stood  in  1772,  com 
pared  with  the  whole  trade  of  England  to  all  parts  of 
the  world  (the  Colonies  included)  in  the  year  1704. 
5  They  are  from  good  vouchers ;  the  latter  period  from 
the  accounts  on  your  table,  the  earlier  from  an  original 

7  manuscript  of  Davenant,  who  first  established  the  In 
spector-General's  office,  which  has  been  ever  since  his 
time  so  abundant  a  source  of  Parliamentary  information. 

10  The  export  trade  to  the  Colonies  consists  of  three 
great  branches  :  —  the  African,  which,  terminating  almost 
wholly  in  the  Colonies,  must  be  put  to  the  account  of 
their  commerce ;  the  West  Indian ;  and  the  North 
American.  All  these  are  so  interwoven  that  the  at- 

15  tempt  to  separate  them  would  tear  to  pieces  the  con 
texture  of  the  whole,  and  if  not  entirely  destroy,  would 
very  much  depreciate  the  value  of  all  the  parts.  I 
therefore  consider  these  three  denominations  to  be, 
what  in  effect  they  are,  one  trade. 

20  The  trade  to  the  Colonies,  taken  on  the  export  side, 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  that  is,  in  the  year 
1704,  stood  thus  :  - 

Exports  to  North  America,  and  the  West 

Indies £483,265 

25  To  Africa 86,665 

£569,930 

In  the  year  1772,  which  I  take  as  a  middle  year 
between  the  highest  and  lowest  of  those  lately  laid  on 
your  table,  the  account  was  as  follows :  — 


ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.      13 

To     North     America,    and    the    West 

Indies     ...........  £4,791,734 

To  Africa 866,398 

To  which,  if  you  add  the  export  trade 

from  Scotland,  which  had  in  1704  no  5 

existence 364,000 

£6,022,132 

From  five  hundred  and  odd  thousand,  it  has  grown  to 
six  millions.     It  has  increased  no  less  than  twelvefold. 
This  is  the  state  of  the  Colony  trade,  as  compared  with  10 
itself  at   these   two  periods,  within   this  century ;    and 
this    is    matter    for    meditation.      But    this    is    not    all. 
Examine  my  second  account.     See  how  the  export  trade 
to  the  Colonies  alone  in  1772  stood  in  the  other  point  of 
view,  that  is,  as  compared  to  the  whole  trade  of  England  15 
in  1704. 

The  whole  export  trade  of  England, 
including'  that  to  the  Colonies,  in 
1704 £6,509,000 

Export  to  the  Colonies  alone,  in   1772     6,024,000  20 

Difference,         £485,000 

The  trade  with  America  alone  is  now  within  less  than 
£500,000  of  being  equal  to  what  this  great  commercial 
nation,  England,  carried  on  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century  with  the  whole  world  !  If  I  had  taken  the  25 
largest  year  of  those  on  your  table,  it  would  rather 
have  exceeded.  But,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  this  Ameri 
can  trade  an  unnatural  protuberance,  that  has  drawn 


14  SPEECH   OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

the  juices  from  the  rest  of  the  body  ?  The  reverse, 
It  is  the  very  food  that  has  nourished  every  other  part 
into  its  present  magnitude.  Our  general  trade  has  been 
greatly  augmented ;  and  augmented  more  or  less  in 

5  almost  every  part  to  which  it  ever  extended ;  but  with 
this  material  difference,  that  of  the  six  millions  which 
in  the  beginning  of  the  century  constituted  the  whole 
mass  of  our  export  commerce,  the  Colony  trade  was  but 
one-twelfth  part ;  it  is  now  (as  a  part  of  sixteen  mil- 

10  lions)    considerably   more  than  a  third   of   the   whole. 
This  is  the  relative  proportion  of  the  importance  of.  the 
Colonies  at   these  two  periods;    and   all  reasoning  con 
cerning  our  mode  of  treating  them  must  have  this  pro 
portion  as  its  basis,  or  it  is  a  reasoning  weak,  rotten, 

ir>  and  sophistical. 

•>s  Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  hurry  over 
this  great  consideration.  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here. 
We  stand  where  we  have  an  immense  view  of  what  is, 
and  what  is  past.  Clouds,  indeed,  and  darkness  rest 

20  upon  the  future.  Let  us,  however,  before  we  descend 
from  this  noble  eminence,  reflect  that  this  growth  of 
our  national  prosperity  has  happened  within  the  short- 
period  of  the  life  of  man.  It  has  happened  within 
sixty-eight  years.  There  are  those  alive  whose  memory 

25  might  touch  the  two  extremities.  For  instance,  my 
Lord  Bathurst  might  remember  all  the  stages  of  the 
progress.  He  was  in  1704  of  an  age  at  least  to  be  made 
to  comprehend  such  things.  He  was  then  old  enough 
acta  parentum  jam  legere,  et  quce  sit  potuit  cognoscere 
virtus.  Suppose,  Sir,  that  the  angel  of  this  auspicious 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.      15 

youth,   foreseeing  the   many  virtues  which  made  him 
one  of   the  most  amiable,  as   he    is   one   of   the   most 
fortunate,  men  of  his  age,  had  opened  to  him  in  vision, 
that  when,  in  the  fourth  generation  the  third  Prince  of 
the  House  of  Brunswick  had  sat  twelve  years  on  the  5 
throne  of  that  nation,   which  (by  the  happy  issue  of 
moderate  and  healing  counsels)  was  to  be  made  Great 
Britain,  he  should  see  his  son,  Lord  Chancellor  of  Eng 
land,  turn  back  the  current  of  hereditary  dignity  to  its 
fountain,  and  raise  him  to  a  higher  rank  of  peerage,  10 
whilst   he    enriched    the  family  with  a   new    one  —  if 
amidst   these   bright   and    happy    scenes    of    domestic 
honor  and  prosperity,  that  angel    should   have   drawn 
up  the  curtain,  and  unfolded  the  rising  glories  of  his 
country,  and,  whilst  he  was  gazing  with  admiration  on  15 
the  then  commercial  grandeur  of  England,  the  genius 
should  point  out  to  him  a  little  speck,  scarcely  visible 
in  the  mass  of  the   national   interest,  a  small  seminal 
principle  rather  than  a  formed  body,  and  should  tell 
him:    "Young  man,  there  is  America  —  which  at  this  20 
day  serves  for   little   more   than   to   amuse   you   with 
stories  of  savage  men,  and  uncouth  manners  ;  yet  shall, 
before  you  taste  of  death,  show  itself  equal  to  the  whole   - 
of  that  commerce  which  now  attracts  the  envy  of  the 
world.     Whatever  England  has  been  growing  to  by  a  25 
progressive    increase    of   improvement,   brought   in   by 
varieties  of  people,  by  succession  of  civilizing  conquests 
and  civilizing  settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen  hun 
dred  years,  you   shall   see   as   much  added   to   her   by 
America  in  the  course  of  a  single  life  ! "     If  this  state 

X^T^^N 


16  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BUEKE 

of  his  country  had  been  foretold  to  him,  would  it  not 
require  all  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the 
fervid  glow  of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him  believe  it  ? 
Fortunate  man,  he  has  lived  to  see  it !  Fortunate 
5  indeed,  if  he  lives  to  see  nothing  that  shall  vary  the 
prospect,  and  cloud  the  setting  of  his  day  ! 

Excuse  me,  Sir,  if,  turning  from  such  thoughts,  I  re 
sume  this  comparative  view  once  more.  You  have  seen 
it  on  a  large  scale ;  look  at  it  on  a  small  one.  I  will 

10  point  out  to  your  attention  a  particular  instance  of  it  in 
the  single  province  of  Pennsylvania.  In  the  year  1704, 
that  province  called  for  £11,459  in  value  of  your  com- 
modities,  native  and  foreign.  This  was  the  whole. 
What  did  it  demand  in  1772?  Why,  nearly  fifty 

15  times  as  much;  for  in  that  year  the  export  to  Penn 
sylvania  was  £507,909,  nearly  equal  to  the  export  to  all 
the  Colonies  together  in  the  first  period. 

I  choose,  Sir,  to  enter  into  these  minute  and  particu 
lar  details,  because  generalities,  which  in  all  other 

20  cases  are  apt  to  heighten  and   raise  the  subject,  have 
here  a  tendency  to  sink  it.     When  we  speak  of  the  com 
merce  with  our  Colonies,  fiction  lags  after  truth,  inven 
tion  is  unfruitful,  and  imagination  cold  and  barren. 
So  far,  Sir,  as  to  the  importance  of  the  object,  in  view 

25  of  its  commerce,  as  concerned  in  the  exports  from  Eng 
land.  If  I  were  to  detail  the  imports,  I  could  show  how 

-  many  enjoyments  they  procure,  which  deceive  the  bur 
then  of  life;  how  many  materials  which  invigorate  the 
springs  of  national  industry,  and  extend  and  animate 
every  part  of  our  foreign  and  domestic  commerce.  This 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      17 

would  be  a  curious  subject  indeed ;    but  I  must  pre 
scribe  bounds  to  myself  in  a  matter  so  vast  and  various. 

I  pass  therefore  to  the  Colonies  in  another  point  of 
view,    thfir    agrirultiiiv.       This    they    have    prosecuted 
with  such  a  spirit,   that,  besides  feeding   plentifully  5 
their  own  growing  multitude,   their   annual   export   of 
grain,  comprehending  rice,  has  some  years  ago  exceeded 
a  million  in  value.     Of  their  last  harvest,   I  am  per 
suaded  they  will  export  much  more.     At  the  beginning 
of  the   century  some  of  these  colonies  imported  corn  10 
from  the  mother  country.     For  some  time  past,  the  Old 
World  has  been  fed  from  the  New.     The  scarcity  which 
you  have  felt  would  have  been  a  desolating  famine,  if 
this  child  of  your  old  age,  with  a  true  filial  piety,  with 
a  Koman  charity,  had  not  put  the  full  breast  of  its  15 
youthful   exuberance   to   the   mouth   of   its   exhausted 
parent. 

Asjx)  the  wealth  which  the  Colonies  have  drawn  from 
the  sea  by  their  fiahftriftg,.  ynn  htu?  n.11  iflmt.  matter  fully 
npftnftd  af.  ynnr  bar  Vrm  snrply  thought  those  acquisi-  20 

tions  of  value,  for  they  seemed  even  to  excite  your  envy  ; 
and  yet  the  spirit  by  which  that  enterprising  employ 
ment  has  been  exercised,  ought  rather,  in  my  opinion, 
to  have  raised  your  esteem  and  admiration.  And  pray, 
Sir,  what  in  the  world  is  equal  to  it  ?  Pass  by  the  25 
other  parts,  and  look  at  the  manner  in  which  the  people 
of  New  England  have  of  late  carried  on  the  whale  fish 
ery.  Whilst  we  follow  them  among  the  tumbling  moun- 


18  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

tains  of  ice,  and  behold  them  penetrating  into  the  deepest 
frozen  recesses  of  Hudson's  Bay  and  Davis'  Straits, 
whilst  we  are  looking  for  them  beneath  the  Arctic  Cir 
cle,  we  hear  that  they  have  pierced  into  the  opposite 
5  region  of  polar  cold,  that  they  are  at  the  antipodes,  and 
engaged  under  the  frozen  Serpent  of  the  south.  Falk 
land  Island,  which  seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an 
object  for  the  grasp  of  national  ambition,  is  but  a  stage 
and  resting-place  in  the  progress  of  their  victorious  in- 

10  dustry.  Nor  is  the  equinoctial  heat  more  discouraging 
to  them  than  the  accumulated  winter  of  both  the  poles. 
We  know  that  whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line  and 
strike  the  harpoon  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  others  run  the 
longitude,  and  pursue  their  gigantic  game  along  the 

15  coast  of  Brazil.  No  sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their 
fisheries.  No  climate  that  is  not  witness  to  their  toils. 
Neither  the  perseverance  of  Holland,  nor  the  activity  of 
France,  nor  the  dexterous  and  firm  sagacity  of  English 
enterprise,  ever  carried  this  most  perilous  mode  of 

20  hardy  industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has  been 
pushed  by  this  recent  people ;  a  people  who  are  still, 
as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened  into 
the  bone  of  manhood.  When  I  contemplate  these 
things ;  when  I  know  that  the  Colonies  in  general 

25  owe  little  or  nothing  to  any  care  of  ours,  and  that 
they  are  not  squeezed  into  this  happy  form  by  the 
constraints  of  watchful  and  suspicious  government,  but 
that,  through  a  wise  and  salutary  neglect,  a  generous 
nature  has  been  suffered  to  take  her  own  way  to  per 
fection  ;  when  I  reflect  upon  these  effects,  when  I  see 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE   COLONIES.      19 

how  profitable  they  have  been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the  pride 
of  power  sink,  and  all  presumption  in  the  wisdom  of 
human  contrivances  melt  and  die  away  within  me.  My 
rigor  relents.  I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of  liberty. 

I  am  sensible,  Sir,  that  all  which  I  have  asserted  in  5 
my  detail,  is  admitted  in  the  gross ;  but  that  quite  a 
different  conclusion  is  drawn  from  it.     America,  gentle 
men  say,  is  a  noble  object.     It  is  an  object  well  worth 
fighting  for.     Certainly  it  is,  if  fighting  a  people  be  the 
best  way  of  gaining  them.     Gentlemen  in  this  respect  10 
will  be  led  to  their  choice  of  means  by  their  complexions 
and  their  habits.     Those  who  understand  the  military 
art,  will  of  course  have  some  predilection  for  it.     Those 
who  wield  the  thunder  of  the  state,  may  have  more  con 
fidence  in  the  efficacy  of  arms.     But  I  confess,  possibly  15 
for  want  of  this  knowledge,  my  opinion  is  much  more  in 
favor  of  prudent  management,  than  of  force ;  consider 
ing  force  not  as  an  odious,  but  a  feeble  instrument,  for 
preserving  a  people  so  numerous,  so  active,  so  growing, 
so  spirited  as  this,  in  a  profitable  and  subordinate  con-  20 
nection  with  us. 

First,  Sir,  permit  me  to  observe  that  the  use  of  force 
alone  is  but  temporary.      It  may  subdue,  for  a  moment, 
but  it  does  not  remove  the  necessity  of  subduing  again ; 
and  a  nation  is  not  governed  which  is  perpetually  to  be  25 
conquered. 

My  next  objection  is  its  inicrrtainfy.     Terror  is  not  - 
always  the  effect  of  force  ;  and  an  armament  is  not  a  vic 
tory.     If  you  do  not  succeed,  you  are  without  resource ; 


20  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

for,  conciliation  failing,  force  remains  ;  but,  force  failing, 
no  further  hope  of  reconciliation  is  left.  Power  and 
authority  are  sometimes  bought  by  kindness  ;  but  they 
can  never  be  begged  as  alms  by  an  impoverished  and 
5  defeated  violence. 

A  further  objection  to  force  is,  that  you  impair  the 
object  by  your  very  endeavors  to  preserve  it.  The  thing 
you  fought  for  is  not  the  thing  which  you  recover,  but- 
depreciated,  sunk,  wasted,  and  consumed  in  the  contest. 

10  Nothing  less  will  content  me  than  whole  America.  I  do 
not  choose  to  consume  its  strength  along  with  our  own ; 
because  in  all  parts  it  is  the  British  strength  that  I  con 
sume.  I  do  not  choose  to  be  caught  by  a  foreign  enemy 
at  the  end  of  this  exhausting  conflict,  and  still  less  in 

15  the  midst  of  it.  I  may  escape,  but  I  can  make  no  in 
surance  against  such  an  event.  Let  me  add,  that  I  do 
not  choose  wholly  to  break  the  American  spirit,  because 
it  is  the  spirit  that  has  made  the  country. 

Lastly,  we  have  no  sort  of  experience  in  favor  of  force 

20  as  an  instrument  in  the  rule  of  our  Colonies.  Their 
growth  and  their  utility  have  been  owing  to  methods 
altogether  different.  Our  ancient  indulgence  has  been 
said  to  be  pursued  to  a  fault.  It  may  be  so.  But  we 
know,  if  feeling  is  evidence,  that  our  fault  was  more  tol- 

25  erable  than  our  attempt  to  mend  it,  and  our  sin  far  more 
salutary  than  our  penitence. 

These,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  not  entertaining  that 
high  opinion  of  untried  force,  by  which  many  gentlemen, 
for  whose  sentiments  in  other  particulars  I  have  great 


ON   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      21 

respect,  seem  to  be  so  greatly  captivated.  But  there  is 
still  behind  a  third  consideration  concerning  this  object, 
which  serves  to  determine  my  opinion  on  the  sort  of 
policy  which  ought  to  be  pursued  in  the  management  of 
America,  even  more  than  its  population  and  its  com-  5 
merce  —  I  mean  its  temper  and  character. 

In  this  character  of  the  Americans,  a  love  of  freedom 
is  the  predominating  feature  which  marks  and  distin 
guishes  the  whole;  and  as  an  ardent  is  always  a  jealous 
affection,  your  Colonies  become  suspicious,  restive,  and  10 
untractabley  whenever  they  §ee  the  least  aMftmpt.  f.n  wrpsf. 
from  them  by  force,  or  shuttle  from  them  by  chicane. 
what  they  think  the  only  advantage  worth  living  for. 
This  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  is  stronger  in  the  English 
Colonies  probably  than  in  any  other  people  of  the  earth,  16 
and  this  from  a  great  variety  of  powerful  causes ;  which, 
to  understand  the  true  temper  of  their  minds,  and  the 
direction  which  this  spirit  takes,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to 
lay  open  somewhat  more  largely. 

First,  the  people  of  the  Colonies  are  descendants  of  20 
Englishmen.  England,  Sir,  is  a  nation  which  still  I 
hope  respects,  and  formerly  adored,  her  freedom.  The 
Colonists  emigrated  from  you  when  this  part  of  your 
character  was  most  predominant,  and  they  took  this 
bias  and  direction  the  moment  they  parted  from  your  25 
hands.  They  are  therefore  not  only  devoted  to  liberty, 
but  to  liberty  according  to  English  ideas  and  on  English 
principles.  Abstract  liberty,  like  other  mere  abstrac 
tions,  is  not  to  be  found.  Liberty  inheres  in  some  sensi 
ble  object ;  and  every  nation  has  formed  to  itself  some 


22  SPEECH   OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

favorite  point,  which  by  way  of  eminence  becomes  the 
criterion  of  their  happiness.  It  happened,  you  know, 
Sir,  that  the  great  contests  for  freedom  in  this  country 
were  from  the  earliest  times  chiefly  upon  the  question  of 
5  taxing.  Most  of  the  contests  in  the  ancient  common 
wealths  turned  primarily  on  the  right  of  election  of 
magistrates,  or  on  the  balance  among  the  several  orders 
of 'the  state.  The  question  of  money  was  not  with  them 
so  immediate.  But  in  England  it  was  otherwise.  On 

10  this  point  of  taxes  the  ablest  pens  and  most  eloquent 
tongues  have  been  exercised,  the  greatest  spirits  have 
acted  and  suffered.  In  order  to  give  the  fullest  satisfac 
tion  concerning  the  importance  of  this  point,  it  was  not 
only  necessary  for  those  who  in  argument  defended  the 

15  excellence  of  the  English  Constitution,  to  insist  on  this 
privilege  of  granting  money  as  a  dry  point  of  fact,  and 
to  prove  that  the  right  had  been  acknowledged  in  an 
cient  parchments  and  blind  usages,  to  reside  in  a  cer 
tain  body  called  a  House  of  Commons.  They  went 

20  much  farther;  they  attempted  to  prove,  and  they  suc 
ceeded,  that  in  theory  it  ought  to  be  so,  from  the  partic 
ular  nature  of  a  House  of  Commons,  as  an  immediate 
representative  of  the  people  ;  whether  the  old  records 
had  delivered  this  oracle  or  not.  They  took  infinite 

25  pains  «to  inculcate,  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  in  all 
monarchies  the  people  must  in  effect  themselves,  medi 
ately  or  immediately,  possess  the  power  of  granting  their 
own  money,  or  no  shadow  of  liberty  can  subsist.  The 
Colonies  draw  from  you,  as  with  their  life-blood,  these 
ideas  and  principles.  Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with  you, 


O^V   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      23 

fixed  and  attached  on  this  specific  point  of  taxing.  Lib 
erty  might  be  safe,  or  might  be  endangered,  in  twenty 
other  particulars,  without  their  being  much  pleased  or 
alarmed.  Here  they  felt  its  pulse  ;  and  as  they  found 
that  beat,  they  thought  themselves  sick  or  sound.  I  do  5 
not  say  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in  applying 
your  general  arguments  to  their  own  case.  It  is  not 
easy  indeed  to  make  a  monopoly  of  theorems  and  corol 
laries.  The  fact  is,  that  they  did  thus  apply  those 
general  arguments ;  and  your  mode  of  governing  them,  10 
whether  through  lenity  or  indolence,  through  wisdom 
or  mistake,  confirmed  them  in  the  imagination,  that 
they,  as  well  as  you,  had  an  interest  in  these  common 
principles. 

They  were  farther  confirmed  in  tins  pleasing  error  15 
by  the  form  of   their  provincial  legislative  assemblies. 
Their  governments  are  popular  in  a  high  degree :  some 
are  merely  popular  ;  in  all,  the  popular  representative 
is  the  most  weighty ;  and  this  share  of  the  people  in 
their  ordinary  government  never  faiR  to  inspire  them  20 
with  lofty  sentiments,  and  with  a  strong  aversion  from 
whatever  tends  to  deprive  them  of  their  chief  impor 
tance. 

If  anything  were  wanting  to  this  necessary  operation 
of  the  form  of  government,  religion  would  have  given  25 
it  a  complete  effect.  Eeligion,  always  a  principle  of 
energy,  in  this  new  people  is  no  way  worn  out  or  im 
paired  ;  and  their  mode  of  professing  it  is  also  one  main 
cause  of  this  free  spirit.  The  people  are  Protestants ; 
and  of  that  kind  which  is  the  most  adverse  to  all  im- 


24  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

plicit  submission  of  mind  and  opinion.  This  is  a  per 
suasion  not  only  favorable  to  liberty,  but  built  upon  it. 
I  do  not  think,  Sir,  that  the  reason  of  this  averseness 
in  the  dissenting  churches,  from  all  that  looks  like 
5  absolute  government,  is  so  much  to  be  sought  in  their 
religious  tenets,  as  in  their  history.  Every  one  knows 
that  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  is  at  least  coeval  with 
most  of  the  governments  where  it  prevails ;  that  it  has 
generally  gone  hand  in  hand  with  them,  and  received 

10  great  favor  and  every  kind  of  support  from  authority. 
The  Church  of  England,  too,  was  formed  from  her  cradle 
under  the  nursing  care  of  regular  government.  But  the 
dissenting  interests  have  sprung  up  in  direct  opposition 
to  all  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  world,  and  could 

15  justify  that  opposition  only  on  a  strong  claim  to  natural 
liberty.  Their  very  existence  depended  on  the  powerful 
and  unremitted  assertion  of  that  claim.  All  Protest 
antism,  even  the  most  cold  and  passive,  is  a  sort  of  dis 
sent.  But  the  religion  most  prevalent  in  our  Northern 

20  Colonies  is  a  refinement  on  the  principle  of  resist 
ance  ;  it  is  the  dissidence  of  dissent,  and  the  Protestant 
ism  of  the  Protestant  religion.  This  religion,  under  a 
variety  of  denominations  agreeing  in  nothing  but  in  the 
communion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  is  predominant  in 

25  most  of  the  Northern  Provinces ;  where  the  Church  of 
England,  notwithstanding  its  legal  rights,  is  in  reality 
no  more  than  a  sort  of  private  sect,  not  composing,  most 
probably,  the  tenth  of  the  people.  The  colonists  left 
England  when  this  spirit  was  high,  and  in  the  emigrants 
was  the  highest  of  all;  and  even  that  stream  of  for- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  TILE  COLONIES.      25 

eigners,  which  has  been  constantly  flowing  into  these 
Colonies,  has,  for  the  greatest  part,  been  composed  of 
dissenters  from  the  establishments  of  their  several  coun 
tries,  who  have  brought  with  them  a  temper  and  character 
far  from  alien  to  that  of  the  people  with  whom  they  5 
mixed. 

Sir,  I  can  perceive  by  their  manner  that  some  gentle 
men  object  to  the  latitude  of  this  description  ;  because 
in  the  Southern  Colonies  the  Church  of  England  forms 
a  large  body  and  has  a  regular  establishment.  It  is  10 
certainly  true.  There  is,  however,  a  circumstance  at 
tending  these  Colonies,  which,  in  my  opinion,  fully 
counterbalances  this  difference,  and  makes  the  spirit 
of  liberty  still  more  high  and  haughty  than  in  those  to 
the  northward.  It  is,  that  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  15 
they  have  a  vast  multitude  of  slaves.  Where  this  is 
the  case  in  any  part  of  the  world,  those  who  are  free 
are  by  far  the  most  proud  and  jealous  of  their  freedom. 
Freedom  is  to  them  not  only  an  enjoyment,  but  a  kind 
of  rank  and  privilege.  Not  seeing  there,  that  freedom,  20 
as  in  countries  where  it  is  a  common  blessing,  and  as 
broad  and  general  as  the  air,  may  be  united  with  much 
abject  toil,  with  great  misery,  with  all  the  exterior  of 
servitude,  liberty  looks,  amongst  them,  like  something 
that  is  more  noble  and  liberal.  I  do  not  mean,  Sir,  to  25 
commend  the  superior  morality  of  this  sentiment,  which 
has  at  least  as  much  pride  as  virtue  in  it ;  but  I  cannot 
alter  the  nature  of  man.  The  fact  is  so ;  and  these 
people  of  the  Southern  Colonies  are  much  more  strongly, 
and  with  a  higher  and  more  stubborn  spirit,  attached 


26  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

to  liberty,  than  those  to  the  northward.  Such  were  all 
the  ancient  commonwealths ;  such  were  our  Gothic  an 
cestors  ;  such  in  our  days  were  the  Poles  j  and  such  will 
be  all  masters  of  slaves  who  are  not  slaves  themselves. 
5  In  such  a  people,  the  haughtiness  of  domination  com 
bines  with  the  spirit  of  freedom,  fortifies  it,  and  renders 
it  invincible. 

Permit  me,  Sir,  to  add  another  circumstance  in  our 
Colonies,  which  contributes  no  mean  part  towards  the 

10  growth  and  effect  of  this  untractable  spirit.  I  mean 
their  educati6n."Th  no  country  perhaps  in  the  world 
is  thp.  la.w  so  gp.np.ra.l  a.  study.  The  profession  itself  is 
numerous  and  powerful,  and  in  most  provinces  it  takes 
the  lead.  The  greater  number  of  the  deputies  sent  to 

15  the  Congress  were  lawyers.  But  all  who  read  (and  most 
do  read)  endeavor  to  obtain  some  smattering  in  that 
science.  I  have  been  told  by  an  eminent  bookseller, 
that  in  no  branch  of  his  business,  after  tracts  of  popular 
devotion,  were  so  many  books  as  those  on  the  law 

20  exported  to  the  Plantations.  The  Colonists  have  now 
fallen  into  .the  way  of  printing  them  for  their  own  use. 
I  hear  that  they  have  sold  nearly  as  many  of  Blackstone's 
Commentaries  in  America  as  in  England.  General  Gage 
marks  out  this  disposition  very  particularly  in  a  letter 

25  on  your  table.  He  states  that  all  the  people  in  his 
government  are  lawyers,  or  smatterers  in  law ;  and  that 
in  Boston  they  have  been  enabled,  by  successful  chicane, 
wholly  to  evade  many  parts  of  one  of  your  capital  penal 
"Institutions.  The  smartness  of  debate  will  say  that 
this  knowledge  ought  to  teach  them  more  clearly  the 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      27 

rights  of  legislature,  their  obligations  to  obedience,  and 
the  penalties  of  rebellion.  All  this  is  mighty  well.  But 
my  honorable  and  learned  friend  on  the  floor,  who  con 
descends  to  mark  what  I  say  for  animadversion,  will 
disdain  that  ground.  He  has  heard,  as  well  as  I,  that  5 
when  great  honors  and  great  emoluments  do  not  win 
over  this  knowledge  to  the  service  of  the  state,  it  is  a 
formidable  adversary  to  government.  If  the  spirit  be 
not  tamed  and  broken  by  these  happy  methods,  it  is 
stubborn  and  litigious.  Abeunt  studio,  in  mores.  This  10 
study  renders  men  acute,  inquisitive,  dexterous,  prompt 
in  attack,  ready  in  defense,  full  of  resources.  In  other 
countries,  the  people,  more  simple  and  of  a  less  mer 
curial  cast,  judge  of  an  ill  principle  in  government  only 
by  an  actual  grievance  ;  here  they  anticipate  the  evil,  15 
and  jinl.u''1  of  the  pressure  of  the  grievance  by  the  bad 
ness  of  the  principle.  They  augur  misgovermnent  at  a 
distance,  and  snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in  every 
tainted  breeze. 


last  cause  of  this  disobedient  spirit  in  the  Colo-  20 
nies  is  hardly  less  powerful  than  the  rest,  as  it  is  not 
merely  moral,  but  laid  deep  in  the  natural  constitution 
of  things.  Three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  lie  between 
you  and  them.  No  contrivance  can  prevent  the  effect 
of  this  distance  in  weakening  govflrnTnanf..  Sp.aa  mil  25 
and  months  pass  between  the  order  and  the  execution; 
and  the  want  of  a  speedy  explanation  of  a  single  point 
is  enough  to  defeat  a  whole  system.  You  have,  indeed, 
winged  ministers  of  vengeance,  who  carry  your  bolts  in 
their  pounces  to  the  remotest  verge  of  the  sea.  But 


28  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

there  a  power  steps  in,  that  limits  the  arrogance  of 
raging  passions  and  furious  elements,  and  says,  "  So  far 
shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther."  Who  are  you,  that  you 
should  fret  and  rage,  and  bite  the  chains  of  nature  ? 
5  Nothing  worse  happens  to  you  than  does  to  all  nations 
who  have  extensive  empire  ;  and  it  happens  in  all  the 
forms  into  which  empire  can  be  thrown.  In  large 
bodies,  the  circulation  of  power  must  be  less  vigorous  at 
the  extremities.  Nature  has  said  it.  The  Turk  can- 

10  not  govern  Egypt,  and  Arabia,  and  Kurdistan,  as  he 
governs  Thrace ;  nor  has  he  the  same  dominion  in 
Crimea  and  Algiers,  which  he  has  at  Brusa  and  Smyrna. 
Despotism  itself  is  obliged  to  truck  and  huckster.  The 
Sultan  gets  such  obedience  as  he  can.  He  governs  with 

15  a  loose  rein,  that  he  may  govern  at  all ;  and  the  whole 
of  the  force  and  vigor  of  his  authority  in  his  center  is 
derived  from  a  prudent  relaxation  in  all  his  borders. 
Spain  in  her  provinces  is,  perhaps,  not  so  well  obeyed 
as  you  are  in  yours.  She  complies  too,  she  submits, 

20  she  watches  times.  This  is  the  immutable  condition, 
the  eternal  law,  of  extensive  and  detached  empire. 

Then,  sir,  from  these  six  capital  sources  :  of  descent ; 
of  form  of  government ;  of  religion  in  the  Northern 
Provinces;  of  manners  in  the  Southern;  of  education; 

25  of  the  remoteness  of  situation  from  the  first  mover 
of  government  —  from  all  these  causes  a  fierce  spirit  of 
liberty  has  grown  up.  It  has  grown  with  the  growth  of 
the  people  in  your  Colonies,  and  increased  with  the  in 
crease  of  their  wealth ;  a  spirit,  that  unhappily  meeting 
with  an  exercise  of  power  in  England,  which,  however 


O.V  CONCILIATION   WITH  TUB   COLONIES.      29 

lawful,  is  not  reconcilable  to  any  ideas  of  liberty,  much 
less  with  theirs,  has  kindled  this  flame  that  is  ready  to 
consume  us. 

I  do  not  mean  to  commend  either  the  spirit  in  this 
excess,  or  the  moral  causes  which  produce  it.     Perhaps  5 
a  more  smooth  and  accommodating  spirit  of  freedom  in 
them  would  be  more  acceptable  to  us.     Perhaps  ideas  of 
liberty  might  be  desired,  more  reconcilable  with  an  ar 
bitrary  and   boundless   authority.      Perhaps  we  might 
wish  the  Colonists  to  be  persuaded  that  their  liberty  is  10 
more  secure  when  held  in  trust  for  them  by  us,  as  their 
guardians  during  a  perpetual  minority,  than  with  any 
part  of   it  in  their  own  hands.     The  question  is,  not 
whether  their  spirit   deserves  praise  or  blame,  but  — 
what,  in  the  name  of  God,  shall  we  do  with  it  ?     You  15 
have  before  you  the  object,   such  as  it  is,  with  all  its 
glories,  writh  all  its  imperfections,  on  its.  head.     You  see 
the  magnitude,  the  importance,  the  temper,  the  habits,  the 
disorders.     By  all  these  considerations  we  are  strongly 
urged  to  determine  something  concerning  it.     We  are  20 
called  upon  to  fix  some  rule  and  line  for  our  future  con 
duct,  which  may  give  a  little  stability  to  our  politics, 
and  prevent  the  return  of  such  unhappy  deliberations  as 
the  present.     Every  such  return  will  bring  the  matter 
before  us  in  a  still  more  untractable  form.     For,  what  25 
astonishing   and   incredible    things    have   we   not   seen 
already  !     What  monsters  have  not  been  generated  from 
this  unnatural  contention !     Whilst   every  principle  of 
authority  and  resistance   has   been  pushed,  upon  both 


30  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BUBKE 

sides,  as  far  as  it  would  go,  there  is  nothing  so  solid  and 
certain,  either  in  reasoning  or  in  practice,  that  has  not 
been  shaken.  Until  very  lately,  all  authority  in  America 
seemed  to  be  nothing  but  an  emanation  from  yours.  Even 
5  the  popular  part  of  the  Colony  Constitution  derived  all 
its  activity,  and  its  first  vital  movement,  from  the  pleas 
ure  of  the  Crown.  We  thought,  Sir,  that  the  utmost 
which  the  discontented  Colonists  could  do,  was  to  dis 
turb  authority ;  we  never  dreamt  they  could  of  them- 

10  selves  supply  it,  knowing  in  general  what  an  operose 
business  it  is  to  establish  a  government  absolutely  new. 
But  having,  for  our  purposes,  in  this  contention,  re 
solved  that  none  but  an  obedient  assembly  should  sit, 
the  humors  of  the  people  there,  finding  all  passage 

15  through  the  legal  channel  stopped,  with  great  violence 
broke  out  another  way.  Some  provinces  have  tried  their 
experiment,  as  we  have  tried  ours  ;  and  theirs  has  suc 
ceeded.  They  have  formed  a  government  sufficient  for 
its  purposes,  without  the  bustle  of  a  revolution,  or  the 

20  troublesome  formality  of  an  election.  Evident  necessity 
.and  tacit  consent  have  done  the  business  in  an  instant. 
So  well  they  have  done  it,  that  Lord  Dunmore  (the  ac 
count  is  among  the  fragments  on  your  table)  tells  you 
that  the  new  institution  is  infinitely  better  obeyed  than 

25  the  ancient  government  ever  was  in  its  most  fortunate 
periods.  Obedience  is  what  makes  government,  and 
not  the  names  by  which  it  is  called  ;  not  the  name  of 
governor,  as  fuuiibil.y,  or  committee,  as  at  present.  This 
new  govemlnelrfTras~orTginaTedrdirectly  from  the  peo 
ple,  and  was  not  transmitted  through  any  of  the  ordi- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      31 

nary  artificial  media  of  a  positive  constitution.  It  was 
not  a  manufacture  ready  formed  and  transmitted  to 
them  in  that  condition  from  England.  The  evil  arising 
from  hence  is  this :  that  the  colonists  having  once  found 
the  possibility  of  enjoying  the  advantages  of  order  in  5 
the  midst  of  a  struggle  for  liberty,  such  struggles  will 
not  henceforward  seem  so  terrible  to  the  settled  and 
sober  part  of  mankind  as  they  had  appeared  before  the 
trial. 

iJ^Pursuing  the  same  plan  of  punishing  by  the  denial  of  10 
the  exercise  of  government  to  still  greater  lengths,  we 
wholly  abrogated  the  ancient  government  of  Massachu 
setts.  We  were  confident  that  the  first  feeling,  if  not 
the  very  prospect  of  anarchy,  would  instantly  enforce  a 
complete  submission.  The  experiment  was  tried.  A  15 
new,  strange,  unexpected  face  of  things  appeared.  An 
archy  is  found  tolerable.  A  vast  province  has  now  sub 
sisted,  and  subsisted  in  a  considerable  degree  of  health 
and  vigor,  for  near  a  twelvemonth,  without  governor, 
without  public  council,  without  judges,  without  execu-  20 
tive  magistrates.  How  long  it  will  continue  in  this 
state,  or  what  may  arise  out  of  this  unheard-of  situation, 
how  can  the  wisest  of  us  conjecture  ?  Our  late  experience 
has  taught  us  that  many  of  those  fundamental  principles 
formerly  believed  infallible,  are  either  not  of  the  impor-  25 
tance  they  were  imagined  to  be ;  or  that  we  have  not  at 
all  adverted  to  some  other  far  more  important  and  far 
more  powerful  principles,  which  entirely  overrule  those 
we  had  considered  as  omnipotent.  I  am  much  against 
any  farther  experiments,  which  tend  to  put  to  the  proof 


32  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

any  more  of  these  allowed  opinions,  which  contribute  so 
much  to  the  public  tranquillity.  -  In  effeat,  we  suffer  as 
much  at  home  by  this  loosening  of  all  ties,  and  this  con 
cussion  of  all  established  opinions,  as  we  do  abroad. 

5  For,  in  order  to  prove  that  the  Americans  have  no  right 
to  their  liberties,  we  are  every  day  endeavoring  to  sub 
vert  the  maxims  which  preserve  the  whole  spirit  of  our 
own.  To  prove  that  the  Americans  ought  not  to  be  free, 
we  are  obliged  to  depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself ; 

10  and  we  never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over  them 
in  debate,  without  attacking  some  of  those  principles,  or 
deriding  some  of  those  feelings,  for  which  our  ancestors 
have  shed  their  blood. 

But,  Sir,  in  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  pernicious  exper- 

15  iments,  I  do  not  mean  to  preclude  the  fullest  inquiry. 
Far  from  it.  Far  from  deciding  on  a  sudden  or  partial 
view,  I  would  patiently  go  round  and  round  the  subject, 
and  survey  it  minutely  in  every  possible  aspect.  Sir,  if 
I  were  capable  of  engaging  you  to  an  equal  attention,  I 

20  would  state,  that,  as  far  as  I  am  capable  of  discerning, 
there  are  but  three  ways  of  proceeding  relative  to  this 
stubborn  spirit  which  prevails  in  your  Colonies  and 
disturbs  your  Government.  These  are :  to  change  that 
spirit,  as  inconvenient,  by  removing  the  pauses  j  to  pros- 

25  ecute  it  as  criminal ;  or,  to  comply  with  it  as  necessary. 
I  would  not  be  guilty  of  an  imperfect  enumeration ;  I 
can  think  of  but  these  three.  Another  has  indeed  been 
started,  that  of  giving  up  the  Colonies ;  but  it  met  so 
slight  a  reception,  that  I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to 
dwell  a  great  while  upon  it.  It  is  nothing  but  a  little 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      33 

sally  of  anger,  like  the  frowardness  of  peevish  children, 
who,  when  they  cannot  get  all  they  would  have,  are 
resolved  to  take  nothing. 

The  first  of  these  plans,  to  change  the  spirit  as  incon 
venient,  by  removing  the  causes,  I  think  is  the  most  5 
like  a  systematic  proceeding.  It  is  radical  in  its  princi 
ple,  but  it  is  attended  with  great  difficulties,  some  of 
^hem  little  short,  as  I  conceive,  of  impossibilities.  This 
will  appear  by  examining  into  the  plans  which  have 
been  proposed.  10 

As  the  growing  population  in  the  Colonies  is  evidently 
one  cause  of  their  resistance,  it  was  last  session  men 
tioned  in  both  Houses,  by  men  of  weight,  and  received 
not  without  applause,  that  in  order  to  check  this  evil, 
it  would  be  proper  for  the  Crown  to  make  no  further  is 
grants  of  land.  But  to  this  scheme  there  are  two  objec 
tions  :  the  first,  that  there  is  already  so  much  unsettled 
land  in  private  hands,  as  to  afford  room  for  an  immense 
future  population,  although  the  Crown  not  only  withheld 
its  grants,  but  annihilated  its  soil.  If  this  be  the  case,  20 
then  the  only  effect  of  this  avarice  of  desolation,  this 
hoarding  of  a  royal  wilderness,  would  be  to  raise  the 
value  of  the  possessions  in  the  hands  of  the  great  pri 
vate  monopolists,  without  any  adequate  check  to  the 
growing  and  alarming  mischief  of  population.  25 

But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would  be  the 
consequence  ?  The  people  would  occupy  without  grants. 
They  have  already  so  occupied  in  many  places.  You 
cannot  station  garrisons  in  every  part  of  these  deserts. 
If  you  drive  the  people  from  one  place,  they  will  carry 


34  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

on  their  annual  tillage,  and  remove  with  their  flocks 
and  herds  to  another.  Many  of  the  people  in  the  back 
settlements  are  already  little  attached  to  particular 
situations.  Already  they  have  topped  the  Appalachian 
5  mountains.  From  thence  they  behold  before  them  an 
immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich,  level  meadow ;  a  square 
of  five  hundred  miles.  Over  this  they  would  wander 
without  a  possibility  of  restraint ;  they  would  change 
their  manners  with  the  habits  of  their  life ;  would  soon 

10  forget  a  government  by  which  they  were  disowned ; 
would  become  hordes  of  English  Tartars ;  and  pouring 
down  upon  your  unfortified  frontiers  a  fierce  and  irresis 
tible  cavalry,  become  masters  of  your  governors  and 
your  counselors,  your  collectors  and  comptrollers,  and 

15  of  all  the  slaves  that  adhered  to  them.  Such  would, 
and,  in  no  long  time,  must  be,  the  effect  of  attempting 
to  forbid  as  a  crime,  and  to  suppress  as  an  evil,  the 
command  and  blessing  of  Providence,  "  Increase  and 
multiply."  Such  would  be  the  happy  result  of  the  en- 

20  deavor  to  keep  as  a  lair  of  wild  beasts,  that  earth,  which 
God,  by  an  express  charter,  has  given  to  the  children  of 
men.  Far  different,  and  surely  much  wiser,  has  been 
our  policy  hitherto.  Hitherto  we  have  invited  our  peo 
ple,  by  every  kind  of  bounty,  to  fixed  establishments. 

25  We  have  invited  the  husbandman  to  look  to  authority 
for  his  title.  We  have  taught  him  piously  to  believe  in 
the  mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and  parchment.  We  have 
thrown  each  tract  of  land,  as  it  was  peopled,  into  dis 
tricts,  that  the  ruling  power  should  never  be  wholly 
out  of  sight.  We  have  settled  all  we  could,  and  we 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      35 

have  carefully  attended  every  settlement  with  govern 
ment. 

Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as  well  as  for 
the  reasons  I  have  just  given,  I  think  this  new  project 
of   hedging  in   population    to  be    neither    prudent    nor  5 
practicable. 

To  impoverish  the  Colonies  in  general,  and  in  particu 
lar  to  arrest  the  noble  course  of  their  marine  enter 
prises,  would  be  a  more  easy  task.  I  freely  confess  it. 
We  have  shown  a  disposition  to  a  system  of  this  kind ;  10 
a  disposition  even  to  continue  the  restraint  after  the 
offense,  looking  on  ourselves  as  rivals  to  our  Colonies, 
and  persuaded  that  of  course  we  must  gain  all  that  they 
shall  lose.  Much  mischief  we  may  certainly  do.  The 
power  inadequate  to  all  other  things  is  often  more  than  15 
sufficient  for  this.  I  do  not  look  on  the  direct  and  im 
mediate  power  of  the  Colonies  to  resist  our  violence  as 
very  formidable.  In  this,  however,  I  may  be  mistaken. 
But  when  I  consider  that  we  have  Colonies  for  no  pur 
pose  but  to  be  serviceable  to  us,  it  seems  to  my  poor  20 
understanding  a  little  preposterous  to  make  them  un 
serviceable  in  order  to  keep  them  obedient.  It  is,  in 
truth,  nothing  more  than  the  old,  and,  as  I  thought, 
exploded  problem  of  tyranny,  which  proposes  to  beggar 
its  subjects  into  submission.  But  remember,  when  you  25 
have  completed  your  system  of  impoverishment,  that 
nature  still  proceeds  in  her  ordinary  course ;  that  dis 
content  will  increase  with  misery ;  and  that  there  are 
critical  moments  in  the  fortune  of  all  states,  when  they 
who  are  too  weak  to  contribute  to  your  prosperity  may 


36  SPEECH   OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

be  strong  enough  to  complete  your  ruin.     Spoliatis  arma 
supersunt. 

The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in  our  Colo 
nies  are,  I  am  afraid,  unalterable  by  any  human  art. 

5  We  cannot,  I  fear,  falsify  the  pedigree  of  this  fierce 
people,  and  persuade  them  that  they  are  not  sprung 
from  a  nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  freedom  cir 
culates.  The  language  in  which  they  would  hear  you 
tell  them  this  tale  would  detect  the  imposition  ;  your 

10  speech  would  betray  you.  An  Englishman  is  the  im- 
fittest  person  on  earth  to  argue  another  Englishman 
into  slavery. 

I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to  change 
their   republican   religion  as  their  free  descent,   or  to 

15  substitute  the  Roman  Catholic  as  a  penalty,  or  the 
Church  of  England  as  an  improvement.  The  mode  of 
inquisition  and  dragooning  is  going  out  of  fashion  in 
the  Old  World  ;  and  I  should  not  confide  much  to  their 
efficacy  in  the  New.  The  education  of  the  Americans 

20  is  also  on  the  same  unalterable  bottom  with  their  reli 
gion.  You  cannot  persuade  them  to  burn  their  books 
of  curious  science;  to  banish  their  lawyers  from  their 
courts  of  laws ;  or  to  quench  the  lights  of  their  assem 
blies,  by  refusing  to  choose  those  persons  who  are  best 

25  read  in  their  privileges.  It  would  be  no  less  impracti 
cable  to  think  of  wholly  annihilating  the  popular  assem 
blies  in  which  these  lawyers  sit.  The  army,  by  which 
we  must  govern  in  their  place,  would  be  far  more  charge 
able  to  us,  not  quite  so  effectual,  and  perhaps,  in  the 
end,  full  as  difficult  to  be  kept  in  obedience. 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH    THE   COLONIES.      37 

With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit  of  Virginia 
and  the  Southern  Colonies,  it  has  been  proposed,  I  know, 
to  reduce  it  by  declaring  a  general  enfranchisement  of 
their  slaves.  This  project  nas  nad  its  advocates  and 

panegyrists,  yet  I  never  could  argue   myself  into  any  5 
opinion  of  it.     Slaves  are  often  much  attached  to  their 
masters.      A  general   wild  offer  of   liberty  would  not 
always  be  accepted.      History  furnishes  few  instances 
of  it.     It  is  sometimes  as  hard  to  persuade  slaves  to 
be  free  as  it  is  to  compel  freemen  to  be  slaves  -3  and  10 
in  this  auspicious  scheme  we   should   have   both   these 
pit-using  tasks  on  our  hands  at  once.      ]>ut   when  \vc  talk 
of  enfranchisement,  do  we  not  perceive  that  the  Ameri 
can  master  may  enfranchise  too,  and  arm  servile  hands 
in  defense  of  freedom  ?  —  a  measure  to  which  other  peo-  15 
pie  have  had  recourse  more  than  once,  and  not  without 
success,  in  a  desperate  situation  of  their  affairs. 

Slaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people  are,  and  dull 
as  jj_jj^J|-_^_rQ--6yin.s^aveyy«...?P:us^  they  nc-t  a. little_sns- 
pect  the  offer  of  freedom  from  that  very  nation  which  20 
has  sold  them  to  their  present  masters,  from  that  na 
tion,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel  with  those  mas 
ters  is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more  in  that  inhuman 
traffic  ?  An  offer  of  freedom  from  England  would  opme 
rather  oddly,  shipped  to  them  in  an  African  vessel,  25 
which  is  refused  an  entry  into  the  ports  of  Virginia  or 
Carolina  with  a  cargo  of  three  hundred  Angola  negroes. 
It  would  be  curious  to  see  the  Guinea  captain  attempt 
ing  at  the  same  instant  to  publish  his  proclamation  of 
liberty,  and  to  advertise  his  sale  of  slaves. 


38  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difficulties  got  over. 

The  oceau  remains.     You  cannot  pump  this  dry ;   and 

as  long  as  it  continues  in  its  present  brrlj  nn  long  jll  the 

causes   Avhich  weaken  authority  by  distance   will  con- 

5  lisas* 

"  Ye  gods,  annihilate  but  space  and  tiine, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy !  "  — 

was  a  pious  and  passionate  prayer ;  but  just  as  reason 
able  as  many  of  the  serious  wishes  of  very  grave  and 
10  solemn  politicians. 

If  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to  think  of  any 
alterative  course  for  changing  the  moral  causes,  and 
not  quite  easy  to  remove  the  natural,  which  produce 
prejudices  irreconcilable  to  the  late  exercise  of  our 

15  authority ;  but  that  the  spirit  infallibly  will  continue, 
and,  continuing,  will  produce  such  effects  as  now  em 
barrass  us ;  the  second  mode  under  consideration  is,  to 
prosecute  that  spirit  in  its  overt  acts  as  criminal. 
At  this  proposition  I  must  pause  a  moment.     The 

20  thing  seems  a  great  deal  too  big  for  my  ideas  of  juris 
prudence.  It  should  seem  to  my  way  of  conceiving 
such  matters,  that  there  is  a  very  wide  difference  in 
reason  and  policy,  between  the  mode  of  proceeding  on 
the  irregular  conduct  of  scattered  individuals,  or  even  of 

25  bands  of  men,  who  disturb  order  within  the  state,  and 
the  civil  dissensions  which  may  from  time  to  time,  on 
great  questions,  agitate  the  several  communities  which 
compose  a  great  empire.  It  looks  to  me  to  be  narrow 
and  pedantic  to  apply  the  ordinary  ideas  of  criminal 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      39 

justice  to  this  great  public  contest.  I  do  not  know  the 
method  of  drawing  up  an  indictment  against  a  whole 
people.  -I  cannot  insult  and  ridicule  the  feelings  of 
millions  of  my  fellow-creatures,  as  Sir  Edward  Coke 
insulted  one  excellent  individual  (Sir  Walter  Raleigh)  5 
at  the  bar.  I  hope  I  am  not  ripe  to  pass  sentence  on 
the  gravest  public  bodies,  intrusted  with  magistracies  of 
great  authority  and  dignity,  and  charged  with  the  safety 
of  their  fellow-citizens,  upon  the  very  same  title  that 
I  am.  I  really  think,  that  for  wise  men,  this  is  not  10 
judicious ;  for  sober  men,  not  decent ;  for  minds  tinc 
tured  with  humanity,  not  mild  and  merciful. 

Perhaps,  Sir,  I  am  mistaken  in  my  idea  of  an  empire 
as  distinguished  from  a  single  state  or  kingdom.  But 
my  idea  of  it  is  this,  that  an  empire  is  the  aggregate  15 
of  many  states  under  one  common  head,  whether  this 
head  be  a  monarch  or  a  presiding  republic.  It  does,  in 
such  constitutions,  frequently  happen  (and  nothing  but 
the  dismal,  cold,  dead  uniformity  of  servitude  can  pre 
vent  its  happening)  that  the  subordinate  parts  have  20 
many  local  privileges  and  immunities.  Between  these 
privileges  and  the  supreme  common  authority  the  line 
may  be  extremely  nice.  Of  course  disputes,  often  too 
very  bitter  disputes  and  much  ill-blood,  will  arise.  But 
though  every  privilege  is  an  exemption  (in  the  case)  25 
from  the  ordinary  exercise  of  the  supreme  authority,  it 
is  no  denial  of  it.  The  claim  of  a  privilege  seems  rather, 
ex  vi  termini,  to  imply  a  superior  power.  For  to  talk  of 
the  privileges  of  a  state  or  of  a  person  who  has  no 
superior,  is  hardly  any  better  than  speaking  nonsense. 


40  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

Now,  in  such  unfortunate  quarrels  among  the  component 
parts  of  a  great  political  union  of  communities,  I  can 
scarcely  conceive  anything  more  completely  imprudent 
than  for  the  head  of  the  empire  to  insist  that,  if  any 
5  privilege  is  pleaded  against  his  will  or  his  acts,  his 
whole  authority  is  denied ;  instantly  to  proclaim  rebel 
lion,  to  beat  to  arms,  and  to  put  the  offending  provinces 
under  the  ban.  Will  not  this,  Sir,  very  soon  teach  the 
provinces  to  make  no  distinctions  on  their  part  ?  Will 

10  it  not  teach  them  that  the  government,  against  which 
a  claim  of  liberty  is  tantamount  to  high  treason,  is  a 
government  to  which  submission  is  equivalent  to  slav 
ery  ?  It  may  not  always  be  quite  convenient  to  impress 
dependent  communities  with  such  an  idea. 

15  We  are  indeed,  in  all  disputes  with  the  Colonies,  by 
the  necessity  of  things,  the  judge.  It  is  true,  Sir.  But 
I  confess  that  the  character  of  judge  in  my  own  cause  is 
a  thing  that  frightens  me.  Instead  of  filling  me  with 
pride,  I  am  exceedingly  humbled  by  it.  I  cannot  pro- 

20  ceed  with  a  stern,  assured,  judicial  confidence,  until  I 
find  myself  in  something  more  like  a  judicial  character. 
I  must  have  these  hesitations  as  long  as  I  am  compelled 
to  recollect  that,  in  my  little  reading  upon  such  contests 
as  these,  the  sense  of  mankind  has  at  least  as  often  de- 

25  cided  against  the  superior  as  the  subordinate  power. 
Sir,  let  me  add  too,  that  the  opinion  of  my  having  some 
abstract  right  in  my  favor  would  not  put  me  much  at 
my  ease  in  passing  sentence,  unless  I  could  be  sure  that 
there  were  no  rights  which,  in  their  exercise  under  cer 
tain  circumstances,  were  not  the  most  odious  of  all 


(XZV  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      41 

wrongs,  and  the  most  vexatious  of  all  injustice.  Sir, 
these  considerations  have  great  weight  with  me  when 
I  find  things  so  circumstanced  that  I  see  the  same  party 
at  once  a  civil  litigant  against  me  in  point  of  right  and 
a  culprit  before  me, —  while  I  sit  as  a  criminal  judge  on  5 
acts  of  his,  whose  moral  quality  is  to  be  decided  upon 
the  merits  of  that  very  litigation.  Men  are  every  now 
and  then  put,  by  the  complexity  of  human  affairs,  into 
strange  situations ;  but  justice  is  the  same,  let  the 
judge  be  in  what  situation  he  will.  10 

There  is,  Sir,  also  a  circumstance  which  convinces  me 
that  this  mode  of  criminal  proceeding  is  not  (at  least  in 
the  present  stage  of  our  contest)  altogether  expedient ; 
which  is  nothing  less  than  the  conduct  of  those  very 
persons  who  have  seemed  to  adopt  that  mode,  by  lately  15 
declaring  a  rebellion  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  as  they  had 
formerly  addressed  to  have  traitors  brought  hither, 
under  an  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  trial.  For, 
though  rebellion  is  declared,  it  is  not  proceeded  against 
as  such,  nor  have  any  steps  hppn  t.fl.1rPT|  towards  th?  20 
apprehension^  pr  conviction  of  any  individual  ^ff^TKV^ 
either  on  our  late  or  our  former  Address;  but  modes  of 
public  coercion  have  been  adopted,  and  such  as  have 
much  more  resemblance  to  a  sort  of  qualified  hostility 
towards  an  independent  power,  than  the  punishment  of  25 
rebellious  subjects.  All  this  .seems  rather  inconsistent ; 
but  it  shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  apply  these  juridical 
ideas  to  our  present  case. 

In  this  situation  let  us  seriously  and  coolly  ponder. 
What  is  it  we  have  got  by  all  our  menaces,  which  have 


SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

been  many  and  ferocious  ?  What  advantage  have  we 
derived  from  the  penal  laws  we  have  passed,  and  which, 
for  the  time,  have  been  severe  and  numerous  ?  What 
advances  have  we  made  towards  our  object  by  the 

5  sending  of  a  force,  which,  by  land  and  sea,  is  no  con 
temptible  strength  ?  Has  the  disorder  abated  ?  Noth 
ing  less.  When  I  see  things  in  this  situation,  after 
such  confident  hopes,  bold  promises,  and  active  exer 
tions,  I  cannot,  for  my  life,  avoid  a  suspicion  that  the 

10  plan  itself  is  not  correctly  right. 

If,  then,  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this  spirit  of 
American  liberty  be,  for  the  greater  part,  or  rather 
entirely,  impracticable ;  if  the  ideas  of  criminal  process 
be  inapplicable,  or,  if  applicable,  are  in  the  highest 

15  degree  inexpedient;  what  way  yet  remains?  No  way 
is  open  but  the  tliml  and.  last,  —  to  comply  with  the 
American  spirit  as  necessary;  or,  if  you  please,  to 
submit  to  it  as  a  necessary  evil. 

If  we  adopt  this  mode,  if  we  mean  to  conciliate  and 

20  concede,  let  us  see  of  what  nature  the  concession  ought 
to  be ;  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  our  concession,  we 
must  look  at  their  complaint.  The  Colonies  complain 
that  they  have  not  the  characteristic  mark  and  seal  of 
British  freedom.  They  complain  that  they  are  taxed  in 

25  a  Parliament  in  which  they  are  not  represented.  If 
you  mean  to  satisfy  them  at  all,  you  must  satisfy 
them  with  regard  to  this  complaint.  If  you  mean 
to  please  any  people,  you  must  give  them  the  boon 
which  they  ask,  not  what  you  may  think  better  for 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      43 

them,  but  of  a  kind  totally  different.  Such  an  act 
may  be  a  wise  regulation,  but  it  is  no  concession; 
whereas  our  present  thenie  is  the  mode  of  giving  sat 
isfaction. 

Sir,  I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am  resolved  this  5 
day  to  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  question  of 
the  right  of  taxation.     Some  gentlemen  startle,  but  it  is 
true ;  I   put  it  totally  out  of  the  question.     It  is  less 
than  nothing   in   my  consideration.     I    do   not   indeed 
wonder,  nor  will  you,  Sir,  that  gentlemen  of  profound  10 
learning  are  fond  of  displaying  it  on  this  profound  sub 
ject.      But  my  consideration  is  narrow,  confined,   and 
wholly  limited  to  the  policy  of  the  question.  /  I  do  not 
examine  whether  the  giving  away  a  man's  money  be  a 
power  excepted  and  reserved  out  of  the  general  trust  of  15 
government ;  and  how  far  all  mankind,  in  all  forms  of 
polity,  are  entitled  to  an  exercise  of  that  right  by  the 
charter  of  nature.     Or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  a  right 
of  taxation  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  general  prin 
ciple  of  legislation,  and  inseparable  from  the  ordinary  20 
supreme  power.     These  are  deep  questions,  where  great 
names  militate  against  each  other,  where  reason  is  per 
plexed,  and  an  appeal  to  authorities  only  thickens  the 
confusion.     For  high  and  reverend  authorities  lift  up 
their  heads  on  both  sides ;  and  there  is  no  sure  footing  25 
in  the  middle.     This  point  is  the  — 

" great  Serbonian  bog, 

Betwixt  Damiata  and  Mount  Casius  old, 
Where  armies  whole  have  sunk." 


44  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

I  do  not  intend  to  be  overwhelmed  in  that  bog,  though 
in  such  respectable  company.  The  question  with  me  is 
not  whether  you  have  a  right  to  render  your  people 
miserable,  but  whether  it  is  not  your  interest  to  make 
5  them  happy.  It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells  me  I  may 
do,  but  what  humanity,  reason,  and  justice  tell  me  I 
ought  to  do.  Is  a  politic  act  the  w^orse  for  being  *a 
generous  one  ?  Is  no  concession  proper  but  that  which 
is  made  from  your  want  of  right  to  keep  what  you 

10  grant  ?  Or  does  it  lessen  the  grace  or  dignity  of  relax 
ing  in  the  exercise  of  an  odious  claim  because  you  have 
your  evidence-room  full  of  titles,  and  your  magazines 
stuffed  with  arms  to  enforce  them  ?  What  signify  all 
those  titles  and  all  those  arms  ?  Of  what  avail  are  they 

15  when  the  reason  of  the  thing  tells  me  that  the  assertion 
of  my  title  is  the  loss  of  my  suit,  and  that  I  could  do, 
nothing  but  wound  myself  by  the  use  of  my  own 
weapons  ? 

Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute  neces- 

20  sity  of  keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  Empire  by  a 
unity  of  spirit,  though  in  a  diversity  of  operations,  that, 
if  I  were  sure  the  colonists  had,  at  their  leaving  this 
country,  sealed  a  regular  compact  of  servitude,  that 
they  had  solemnly  abjured  all  the  rights  of  citizens, 

25  that  they  had  made  a  vow  to  renounce  all  ideas  of 
liberty  for  them  and  their  posterity  to  all  generations, 
yet  I  should  hold  myself  obliged  to  conform  to  the 
temper  I  found  universally  prevalent  in  my  own  day, 
and  to  govern  two  millions  of  men,  impatient  of  servi 
tude,  on  the  principles  of  freedom.  I  am  not  determin- 


ON  CONCILIATION  WITH  THE  COLONIES.     45 

ing  a  point  of  law,  I  am  restoring  tranquillity ;  and  the 
general  character  and  situation  of  a  people  must  deter 
mine  what  sort  of  government  is  fitted  for  them.  That 
point  nothing  else  can  or  ought  to  determine. 

My  idea,  therefore,  without  considering  whether  we  5 
yield  as  matter  of  right,  or  grant  as  matter  of  favor,  is 
to  admit  the  people  of  our  Colonies  into  an  interest  in  the 
Constitution;  and,  by  recording  that  admission  in  the 
Journals  of  Parliament,  to  give  them  as  strong  an  assur 
ance  as  the  nature  of  the  thing  will  admit,  that  wre  10 
mean  forever  to  adhere  to  that  solemn  declaration  of 
systematic  indulgence. 

Some  years  ago,  the  repeal  of  a  revenue  act  upon  its 
understood  principle  might  have  served  to  show  that  we 
intended  an  unconditional  abatement  of  the  exercise  of  15 
a  taxing  power.     Such  a  measure  was  then  sufficient  to 
remove  all  suspicion  and  to  give  perfect  content.     But 
unfortunate  events  since  that  time  may  make  something 
further  necessary ;  and  not  more  necessary  for  the  satis 
faction  of  the  Colonies  than  for  the  dignity  and  consist-  20 
ency  of  our  own  future  proceedings. 

I  have  taken  a  very  incorrect  measure  of  the  disposi 
tion  of  the  House,  if  this  proposal  in  itself  would  be 
received  with  dislike.  I  think,  Sir,  we  have  few  Amer 
ican  financiers.  But  our  misfortune  is,  we  are  too  25 
acute,  we  are  too  exquisite  in  our  conjectures  of  the 
future  for  men  oppressed  with  such  great  and  present 
evils.  The  more  moderate  among  the  opposers  of  Par 
liamentary  concession  freely  confess  that  they  hope  no 


46  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

good  from  taxation  ;  but  they  apprehend  the  colonists 
have  further  views,  and  if  this  point  were  conceded, 
they  would  instantly  attack  the  trade  laws.  These 
gentlemen  are  convinced  that  this  was  the  intention 

5  from  the  beginning,  and  the  quarrel  of  the  Americans 
with  taxation  was  no  more  than  a  cloak  and  cover  to 
this  design.  Such  has  been  the  language  even  of  a 
gentleman  of  real  moderation,  and  of  a  natural  temper 
well  adjusted  to  fair  and  equal  government.  I  am, 

10  however,  Sir,  not  a  little  surprised  at  this  kind  of  dis 
course  whenever  I  hear  it ;  and  I  am  the  more  surprised 
on  account  of  the  arguments  which  I  constantly  find  in 
company  with  it,  and  which  are  often  urged  from  the 
same  mouths,  and  on  the  same  day. 

15  For  instance,  when  we  allege  that  it  is  against  reason 
to  tax  a  people  under  so  many  restraints  in  trade  as  the 
Americans,  the  Noble  Lord  in  the  Blue  Kibbon  shall 
tell  you  that  the  restraints  on  trade  are  futile  and 
useless ;  of  no  advantage  to  us,  and  of  no  burthen  to 

20  those  on  whom  they  are  imposed  ;  that  the  trade  to 
America  is  not  secured  by  the  Acts  of  Navigation,  but 
by  the  natural  and  irresistible  advantage  of  a  com 
mercial  preference. 

Such  is  the  merit  of  the  trade  laws  in  this  posture 

25  of  the  debate.  But  when  strong  internal  circumstances 
are  urged  against  the  taxes ;  when  the  scheme  is  dis 
sected  ;  when  experience  and  the  nature  of  things  are 
brought  to  prove,  and  do  prove,  the  utter  impossibility 
of  obtaining  an  effective  revenue  from  the  Colonies; 
when  these  things  are  pressed,  or  rather  press  them- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      47 

selves,  so  as  to  drive  the  advocates  of  Colony  taxes  to  a 
clear  admission  of  the  futility  of  the  scheme  —  then,  Sir, 
the  sleeping  trade  laws  revive  from  their  trance ;  and 
this  useless  taxation  is  to  be  kept  sacred,  not  for  its  own 
sake,  but  as  a  counter- guard  and  security  of  the  laws  of  5 
trade. 

Then,  Sir,  you  keep  up  revenue  laws  which  are  mis 
chievous,  in  order  to  preserve  trade  laws  that  are  useless. 
Such  is  the  wisdom  of  our  plan  in  both  its  members. 
They  are  separately  given  up  as  of  no  value ;  and  yet  10 
one  is  always  to  be  defended  for  the  sake  of  the  other. 
But  I  cannot  agree  with  the  Noble  Lord,  nor  with  the 
pamphlet  from  whence  he  seems  to  have  borrowed 
these  ideas  concerning  the  inutility  of  the  trade  laws. 
For,  without  idolizing  them,  I  am  sure  they  are  still,  in  15 
many  ways,  of  great  use  to  us  ;  and  in  former  times  they 
have  been  of  the  greatest.  They  do  confine  and  they 
do  greatly  narrow  the  market  for  the  Americans.  But 
my  perfect  conviction  of  this  does  not  help  me  in  the 
least  to  discern  how  the  revenue  laws  form  any  secu-  20 
rity  whatsoever  to  the  commercial  regulations ;  or  that 
these  commercial  regulations  are  the  true  ground  of  the 
quarrel ;  or  that  the  giving  way,  in  any  one  instance  of 
authority,  is  to  lose  all  that  may  remain  unconceded. 

One  fact  is  clear  and  indisputable.     The  public  and  25 
avowed  origin  of  this  quarrel  was  on  taxation.      This 
quarrel  has   indeed   brought  on   new  disputes    on  new 
questions,  but  certainly  the  least  bitter,  and  the  fewest 
of  all,  on  the  trade  laws.     To  judge  which  of  the  two     • 
be  the  real,  radical   cause  of   quarrel,  we  have  to  see 


48  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  ZURKE 

whether  the  commercial  dispute  did,  in  order  of  time, 
precede  the  dispute  on  taxation.  There  is  not  a  shadow 
of  evidence  for  it.  Next,  to  enable  us  to  judge  whether 
at  this  moment  a  dislike  to  the  trade  laws  be  the  real 
5  cause  of  quarrel,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  put  the 
taxes  out  of  the  question  by  a  repeal.  See  how  the 
Americans  act  in  this  position,  and  then  you  will  be  able 
to  discern  correctly  what  is  the  true  object  of  the  con 
troversy,  or  whether  any  controversy  at  all  will  remain. 

10  Unless  you  consent  to  remove  this  cause  of  difference,  it 
is  impossible,  with  decency,  to  assert  that  the,  dispute  is 
not  upon  what  it  is  avowed  to  be.  And  I  would,  Sir, 
recommend  to  your  serious  consideration,  whether  it  be 
prudent  to  form  a  rule  for  punishing  people,  not  on  their 

15  own  acts,  but  on  your  conjectures.  Surely  it  is  pre 
posterous  at  the  very  best.  It  is  not  justifying  your 
anger  by  their  misconduct ;  but  it  is  converting  your 
ill-will  into  their  delinquency. 

But  the  Colonies  will  go  farther.     Alas  !  alas  !  when 

20  will  this  speculation  against  fact  and  reason  end  ? 
What  will  quiet  these  panic  fears  which  we  entertain 
of  the  hostile  effect  of  a  conciliatory  conduct  ?  Is  it 
true  that  no  case  can  exist  in  which  it  is  proper  for  the 
sovereign  to  accede  to  the  desires  of  his  discontented 

25  subjects  ?  Is  there  anything  peculiar  in  this  case  to 
make  a  rule  for  itself  ?  Is  all  authority  of  course  lost, 
when  it  is  not  pushed  to  the  extreme  ?  Is  it  a  certain 
maxim,  that,  the  fewer  causes  of  dissatisfaction  are  left 
by  government,  the  more  the  subject  will  be  inclined  to 
resist  and  rebel  ? 


ON   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      49 

All  these  objections  being  in  fact  no  more  than  sus 
picions,  conjectures,  divinations,  formed  in  defiance  of 
fact  and  experience,  they  did  not,  Sir,  discourage  me 
from  entertaining  the  idea  of  a  conciliatory  conces 
sion,  founded  on  the  principles  which  I  have  just  5 
stated. 

In  forming  a  plan  for  this  purpose,  I  endeavored  to 
put  myself  in  that  frame  of  mind  which  was  the  most 
natural,  and  the  most  reasonable  ;  and  which  was  cer 
tainly  the  most  probable  means  of  securing  me  from  all  10 
error.  I  set  out  with  a  perfect  distrust  of  my  own  abili 
ties  ;  a  total  renunciation  of  every  speculation  of  my 
own ;  and  with  a  profound  reverence  for  the  wisdom  of 
our  ancestors,  who  have  left  us  the  inheritance  of  so 
happy  a  constitution,  and  so  flourishing  an  empire,  and  15 
what  is  a  thousand  times  more  valuable,  the  treasury  of 
the  maxims  and  principles  which  formed  the  one,  and 
obtained  the  other. 

During  the  reigns  of  the  kings  of  Spain  of  the  Aus 
trian  family,  whenever  they  were  at  a  loss  in  the  Span-  20 
ish  councils,  it  was  common  for  their  statesmen  to  say 
that  they  ought  "to  consult  the  genius  of  Philip  the 
Second.  The  genius  of  Philip  the  Second  might  mis 
lead  them  ;  and  the  issue  of  their  affairs  showed  that 
they  had  not  chosen  the  most  perfect  standard.  But,  25 
Sir,  I  am  sure  that  I  shall  not  be  misled,  when  in  a  case 
of  constitutional  difficulty,  I  consult  the  genius  of  the 
English  Constitution.  Consulting  at  that  oracle  (it  was 
with  all  due  humility  and  piety)  I  found  four  capital 


50  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

examples  in  a  similar  case  before  me,  those  of  Ireland, 
Wales,  Chester,  and  Durham. 

Ireland,  before  the  English  conquest,  though  never 
governed   by   a   despotic    power,    had    no    parliament. 

5  How  far  the  English  Parliament  itself  was  at  that 
time  modelled  according  to  the  present  form,  is  dis 
puted  among  antiquaries.  But  we  have  all  the  reason 
in  the  world  to  be  assured  that  a  form  of  parliament, 
such  as  England  then  enjoyed,  she  instantly  communi- 

10  cated  to  Ireland  ;  and  we  are  equally  sure  that  almost 
every  successive  improvement  in  constitutional  liberty, 
as  fast  as  it  was  made  here,  was  transmitted  thither. 
The  feudal  baronage  and  the  feudal  knighthood,  the 
roots  of  our  primitive  constitution,  were  early  trans- 

15  planted  into  that  soil ;  and  grew  and  flourished  there. 
Magna  Charta,  if  it  did  not  give  us  originally  the  House 
of  Commons,  gave  us  at  least  a  House  of  Commons  of 
weight  and  consequence.  But  your  ancestors  did  not 
churlishly  sit  down  alone  to  the  feast  of  Magna  Charta. 

20  Ireland  was  made  immediately  a  partaker.  This  benefit 
of  English  laws  and  liberties,  I  confess,  was  not  at  first 
extended  to  all  Ireland.  Mark  the  consequence.  Eng 
lish  authority  and  English  liberties  had  exactly  the  same 
boundaries.  Your  standard  could  never  be  advanced  an 

25  inch  before  your  privileges.  •  Sir  John  Davis  shows 
beyond  a  doubt,  that  the  refusal  of  a  general  communi 
cation  of  these  rights  was  the  true  cause  why  Ireland 
was  five  hundred  years  in  subduing ;  and  after  the  vain 
projects  of  a  military  government,  attempted  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it  was  soon  discovered  that 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      51 

nothing  could  make  that  country  English,  in  civility 
and  allegiance,  but  your  laws  and  your  forms  of  legis 
lature.  It  was  not  English  arms,  but  the  English^  C on- 
stitution,  that  conquered  Ireland.  From  that  t-imft, 
Ireland  has  ever  had  a  general  parliament,  as  she  had  5 
before  a  partial  parliament.  You  changed  the  people ; 
you  altered  the  religion ;  but  you  never  touched  the 
form  or  the  vital  substance  of  free  government  in  that 
kingdom.  You  deposed  kings,  you  restored  them ;  you 
altered  the  succession  to  theirs,  as  well  as  to  your  10 
own  Crown ;  but  you  never  altered  their  constitution ; 
the  principle  of  which  was  respected  by  usurpation, 
restored  with  the  restoration  of  monarchy,  and  estab 
lished,  I  trust,  forever,  by  the  glorious  Revolution. 
This  has  made  Ireland  the  great  and  flourishing  king-  15 
dom  that  it  is ;  and  from  a  disgrace  and  a  burthen  intol 
erable  to  this  nation,  has  rendered  her  a  principal  part 
of  our  strength  and  ornament.  This  country  cannot  be 
said  to  have  ever  formally  taxed  her.  The  irregular 
things  done  in  the  confusion  of  mighty  troubles,  and  on  20 
the  hinge  of  great  revolutions,  even  if  all  were  done  that 
is  said  to  have  been  done,  form  no  example.  If  they 
have  any  effect  in  argument,  they  make  an  exception  to 
prove  the  rule.  None  of  your  own  liberties  could  stand 
a  moment  if  the  casual  deviations  from  them,  at  such  25 
times,  were  suffered  to  be  used  as  proofs  of  their  nullity. 
By  the  lucrative  amount  of  such  casual  breaches  in  the 
constitution,  judge  what  the  stated  and  fixed  rule  of 
supply  has  been  in  that  kingdom.  Your  Irish  pension 
ers  would  starve  if  they  had  no  other  fund  *to  live  on 


52  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

than  taxes  granted  by  English  authority.  Turn  your 
eyes  to  those  popular  grants  from  whence  all  your  great 
supplies  are  come,  and  learn  to  respect  that  only  source 
of  public  wealth  in  the  British  Empire. 
5  My  next  example  is  Wales.  This  country  was  said  to 
be  reduced  by  Henry  the  Third.  It  was  said  more  truly 
to  be  so  by  Edward  the  First.  But  though  then  con 
quered,  it  was  not  looked  upon  as  any  part  of  the  realm 
of  England.  Its  old  constitution,  whatever  that  might 

10  have  been,  was  destroyed  ;  and  no  good  one  was  substi 
tuted  in  its  place.  The  care  of  that  tract  was  put  into 
the  hands  of  lords  marchers  —  a  form  of  government 
of  a  very  singular  kind  ;  a  strange  heterogeneous  mon 
ster,  something  between  hostility  and  government ;  per- 

15  haps  it  has  a  sort  of  resemblance,  according  to  the  modes 
of  those  times,  to  that  of  commander-in-chief  at  pres 
ent,  to  whom  all  civil  power  is  granted  as  secondary. 
The  manners  of  the  Welsh  nation  followed  the  genius 
of  the  government;  the  people  were  ferocious,  restive, 

20  savage,  and  uncultivated,  sometimes  composed,  never 
pacified.  Wales,  within  itself,  was  in  perpetual  dis 
order  ;  and  it  kept  the  frontier  of  England  in  perpetual 
alarm.  Benefits  from  it  to  the  state  there  were  none. 
Wales  was  only  known  to  England  by  incursion  and 

25  invasion. 

Sir,  during  that  state  of  things,  Parliament  was  not 
idle.  They  attempted  to  subdue  the  fierce  spirit  of  the 
Welsh  by  all  sorts  of  rigorous  laws.  They  prohibited 
by  statute  the  sending  all  sorts  of  arms  into  Wales,  as 
you  prohibit  by  proclamation  (with  something  more  of 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      53 

doubt  on  the  legality)  the  sending  arms  to  America. 
They  disarmed  the  Welsh  by  statute,  as  you  attempted 
(but  still  with  more  question  on  the  legality)  to  disarm 
New  England  by  an  instruction.  They  made  an  act  to 
drag  offenders  from  Wales  into  England  for  trial,  as  5 
you  have  done  (but  with  more  hardship)  with  regard  to 
America.  By  another  act,  where  one  of  the  parties 
was  an  Englishman,  they  ordained  that  his  trial  should 
be  always  by  English.  They  made  acts  to  restrain 
trade,  as  you  do;  and  they  prevented  the  Welsh  from  10 
the  use  of  fairs  and  markets,  as  you  do  the  Americans 
from  fisheries  and  foreign  ports.  In  short,  when  the 
statute  book  was  not  quite  so  much  swelled  as  it  is 
now,  you  find  no  less  than  fifteen  acts  of  penal  regula 
tion  on  the  subject  of  Wales.  15 

Here  we  rub  our  hands  —  a  fine  body  of  precedents 
for  the  authority  of  Parliament  and  the  use  of  it !  I 
admit  it  fully  ;  and  pray  add  likewise  to  these  prece 
dents,  that  all  the  while  Wales  rid  this  kingdom  like 
an  incubus,  that  it  was  an  unprofitable  and  oppressive  20 
burthen,  and  that  an  Englishman  traveling  in  that 
country  could  not  go  six  yards  from  the  high  road 
without  being  murdered. 

The  march  of  the  human  mind  is  slow.  Sir,  it  was 
not,  until  after  two  nuncirea  years,  discovered  that,  by  25 
an  eternal  law,  Providence  had  decreed  vexation  to 
violence,  and  poverty  to  rapine.  Your,  ancestors  did, 
however,  at  length  open  their  eyes  to  the  ill  husbandry 
of  injustice.  They  found  that  the  tyranny  of  a  free 
people  could,  of  all  tyrannies,  the  least  be  endured ;  and 


54  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

that  laws  made  against  a  whole  nation  were  not  the 
most  effectual  methods  of  securing  its  obedience.  Ac 
cordingly,  in  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  Henry  the 
Eighth,  the  course  was  entirely  altered.  With  a  pre- 
5  amble  stating  the  entire  and  perfect  rights  of  the  Crown 
of  England,  it  gave  to  the  Welsh  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  English  subjects.  A  political  order  was 
established  ;  the  military  power  gave  way  to  the  civil ; 
the  marches  were  turned  into  counties.  But  that  a 

10  nation  should  have  a  right  to  English  liberties,  and  yet 
no  share  at  all  in  the  fundamental  security  of  these 
liberties  —  the  grant  of  their  own  property  —  seemed 
a  thing  so  incongruous,  that  eight  years  after,  that  is, 
in  the  thirty-fifth  of  that  reign,  a  complete  and  not  ill- 

15  proportioned  representation  by  counties  and  boroughs 
was  bestowed  upon  Wales  by  Act  of  Parliament.  From 
that  moment,  as  by  a  charm,  the  tumults  subsided ; 
obedience  was  restored  ;  peace,  order,  and  civilization 
followed  in  the  train  of  liberty.  When  the  day-star 

20  of  the  English  Constitution  had  arisen  in  their  hearts, 
all  was  harmony  within  and  without  — 

" simul  alba  nautis 

Stella  refulsit, 

Defluit  saxis  agitatus  humor  ; 

25  Concidunt  venti,  fugiuntque  nubes, 

Et  minax  (quod  sic  voluere)  ponto 
Unda  recumbit." 

The  very  same  year  the  County  Palatine  of  Chester 
received  the  same  relief  from  its  oppressions,  and  the 
same  remedy  to  its  disorders.  Before  this  time  Chester 


O.V  CONCILIATION   WITH   TUE  COLONIES.      55 

was  little  less  distempered  than  Wales.  The  inhabi 
tants,  without  rights  themselves,  were  the  fittest  to  de 
stroy  the  rights  of  others ;  and  from  thence  Richard  the 
Second  drew  the  standing  army  of  Archers,  with  which 
for  a  time  he  oppressed  England.  The  people  of  Chester  5 
applied  to  Parliament  in  a  petition  penned  as  I  shall 
read  to  you  :  — 

To  the   King  our   Sovereign  Lord,  ih  most  humble  wise 
shewen  unto  your  Excellent  Majesty  the  inhabitants  of 
your    Grace's    County   Palatine  of    Chester;    (1.)    That  10 
where  the  said  County  Palatine  of  Chester  is  and  hath 
been  always  hitherto  exempt,  excluded,  and  separated  out 
and  from  your  High  Court  of  Parliament,  to  have  any 
Knights  and  Burgesses  within  the  said  Court ;  by  reason 
whereof   the   said   inhabitants   have  hitherto  sustained  15 
manifold   disherisons,  losses,   and  damages,  as  well  in 
their  lands,  goods,  and  bodies,  as  in  the  good,  civil,  and 
politic  governance   and   maintenance   of    the    common 
wealth   of   their   said   county :  (2.)    And   forasmuch  as 
the  said  inhabitants  have  always  hitherto  been  bound  by  20 
the  Acts  and  Statutes  made   and  ordained  by  your  said 
Highness,  and  your  most  noble  progenitors,  by  authority 
of  the  said  Court,  as  far  forth  as  other  counties,  cities, 
and  boroughs  have  been,  that  have  had  their  Knights 
and  Burgesses  within  your  said  Court  of  Parliament,  and  25 
yet  have  had  neither  Knight  ne  Burgess  there  for  the 
said    County   Palatine ;    the   said    inhabitants,    for  lack 
thereof,  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved  with 
Acts  and  Statutes  made  within  the  said  Court,  as  well 
derogatory  unto  the  most  ancient  jurisdictions,  liberties,  30 
and  privileges  of  your  said  County  Palatine,  as  preju- 


56  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

dicial  unto  the  commonwealth,  quietness,  rest,  and  peace 
of  your  Grace's  most  bounden  subjects  inhabiting  within 
the  same. 

Wliat  did  Parliament  with  this  audacious  address  ? 
5  Reject  it  as  a  libel  ?  Treat  it  as  an  affront  to  Govern 
ment  ?  Spurn  it  as  a  derogation  from  the  rights  of  le 
gislature  ?  Did  they  toss  it  over  the  table  ?  Did  they 
burn  it  by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman  ?  They 
took  the  petition  of  grievance,  all  rugged  as  it  was,  with- 
10  out  softening  or  temperament,  unpurged  of  the  original 
bitterness  and  indignation  of  complaint ;  they  made  it 
the  very  preamble  to  their  Act  of  redress  ;  and  conse 
crated  its  principle  to  all  ages  in  the  sanctuary  of  legis 
lation. 

15  Here  is  my  third  example.  It  was  attended  with  the 
success  of  the  two  former.  Chester,  civilized  as  well  as 
Wales,  has  demonstrated  that  freedom,  and  not  servi 
tude,  is  the  cure  of  anarchy  ;  as  religion,  and  not  atheism, 
is  the  true  remedy  for  superstition.  Sir,  this  pattern  of 
20  Chester  was  followed  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
with  regard  to  the  County  Palatine  of  Durham,  which 
is  my  fourthf  example.  This  county  had  long  lain  out 
of  the  pale  of  free  legislation.  So  scrupulously  was  the 
example  of  Chester  followed,  that  the  style  of  the  pre- 
25  amble  is  nearly  the  same  with  that  of  the  Chester  Act ; 
and,  without  affecting  the  abstract  extent  of  the  au 
thority  of  Parliament,  it  recognizes  the  equity  of  not 
suffering  any  considerable  district,  in  which  the  British 
subjects  may  act  as  a  body,  to  be  taxed  without  their 
own  voice  in  the  grant. 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH   THE   COLONIES.      57 

Now,  if  the  doctrines  of  policy  contained  in  these 
preambles,  and  the  force  of  these  examples  in  the  Acts 
of  Parliaments,  avail  anything,  what  can  be  said  against 
applying  them  with  regard  to  America?  Are  not  the 
people  of  America  as  much  Englishmen  as  the  Welsh  ?  5 
The  preamble  of  the  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  says  the 
Welsh  speak  a  language  no  way  resembling  that  of  his 
Majesty's  English  subjects.  Are  the  Americans  not  as 
numerous  ?  If  we  may  trust  the  learned  and  accurate 
Judge  Barrington's  account  of  North  Wales,  and  take  10 
that  as  a  standard  to  measure  the  rest,  there  is  no  com 
parison.  The  people  cannot  amount  to  above  two  hun 
dred  thousand ;  not  a  tenth  part  of  the  number  in  the 
Colonies.  Is  America  in  rebellion  ?  Wales  was  hardly 
ever  free  from  it.  Have  you  attempted  to  govern  15 
America  by  penal  statutes  ?  You  made  fifteen  for 
Wales.  But  your  legislative  authority  is  perfect  with 
regard  to  America.  Was  it  less  perfect  in  Wales, 
Chester,  and  Durham  ?  But  America  is  virtually  rep 
resented.  What !  does  the  electric  force  of  virtual  20 
representation  more  easily  pass  over  the  Atlantic  than 
pervade  Wales,  which  lies  in  your  neighborhood,  or 
than  Chester  and  Durham,  surrounded  by  abundance  of 
representation  that  is  actual  and  palpable  ?  But,  Sir, 
your  ancestors  thought  this  sort  of  virtual  representa-  25 
tion,  however  ample,  to  be  totally  insufficient  for  the 
freedom  of  the  inhabitants  of  territories  that  are  so 
near,  and  comparatively  so  inconsiderable.  How  then 
can  I  think  it  sufficient  for  those  which  are  infinitely 
greater,  and  infinitely  more  remote  ? 


58  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

You  will  now,  Sir,  perhaps  imagine  that  I  am  on  the 
point  of  proposing  to  you  a  scheme  for  a  representation 
of  the  Colonies  in  Parliament.  Perhaps  I  might  be 
inclined  to  entertain  some  such  thought;  but  a  great 
5  flood  stops  me  in  my  course.  Opposuit  natura  —  I  can 
not  remove  the  eternal  barriers  of  the  creation.  The 
thing,  in  that  mode,  I  do  not  know  to  be  possible.  As  I 
meddle  with  no  theory,  I  do  not  absolutely  assert  the 
impracticability  of  such  a  representation.  But  I  do  not 

10  see  my  way  to  it,  and  those  who  have  been  more  con 
fident  have  not  been  more  successful.  However,  the 
arm  of  public  benevolence  is  not  shortened,  and  there 
are  often  several  means  to  the  same  end.  What  nature 
has  disjoined  in  one  way,  wisdom  may  unite  in  another. 

15  When  we  cannot  give  the  benefit  as  we  would  wish,  .let 
us  not  refuse  it  altogether.  If  we  cannot  give  the 
principal,  let  us  find  a  substitute.  But  how  ?  Where  ? 
What  substitute  ? 

Fortunately  I  am  not  obliged  for  the  ways  and  means 

20  of  this  substitute  to  tax  my  own  unproductive  inven 
tion.  I  am  not  even  obliged  to  go  to  the  rich  treasury 
of  the  fertile  framers  of  imaginary  commonwealths; 
not  to  the  Republic  of  Plato;  not  to  the  Utopia  of 
More ;  not  to  the  Oceana  of  Harrington.  It  is  before 

25  me  —  it  is  at  my  feet,  — 

" and  the  rude  swain 

Treads  daily  on  it  with  his  clouted  shoon." 

I  only  wish  you  to  recognize,  for  the  theory,  the  ancient 
constitutional   policy   of  this   kingdom  with  regard  to 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      59 

representation,  as  that  policy  has  been  declared  in  Acts 
of  Parliament ;  and,  as  to  the  practice,  to  return  to 
that  mode  which  a  uniform  experience  has  marked  out 
to  you  as  best,  and  in  which  you  walked  with  security, 
advantage,  and  honor,  until  the  year  1763.  5 

My  resolutions  therefore  mean  to  establish  the  equity 
and  justice  of  a  taxation  of  America  by  grant,  and  not 
by  imposition;  to  mark  the  legal  competency  of  the 
Colony  Assemblies  for  the  support  of  their  government 
in  peace,  and  for  public  aids  in  time  of  war;  to  ac-  10 
knowledge  that  this  legal  competency  has  had  a  dutiful 
and  beneficial  exercise ;  and  that  experience  has  shown 
the  benefit  of  their  grants,  and  the  futility  of  Parlia 
mentary  taxation  as  a  method  of  supply. 

These  solid  truths  compose  six  fundamental  proposi-  15 
tions.      There  are  three   more  resolutions   corollary  to 
these.     If  you  admit  the  first  set,  you  can  hardly  reject 
the  others.     But  if  you  admit  the  first,  I  shall  be  far 
from  solicitous  whether  you  accept  or  refuse  the  last. 
I  think  these  six  massive  pillars  will  be  of  strength  suf-  20 
ficient  to  support  the  temple  of  British  concord.     I  have 
110  more  doubt  than  I  entertain  of  my  existence,  that  if 
you  admitted  these,  you  would  command  an  immediate 
peace  ;  and,  with  but  tolerable  future    management,  a 
lasting  obedience  in    America.     I  am  not   arrogant  in  25 
this  confident  assurance.     The  propositions  are  all  mere 
matters  of  fact ;  and  if  they  are  such  facts  as  draw  irre 
sistible  conclusions  even  in  the  stating,  this  is  the  power 
of  truth,  and  not  any  management  of  mine. 


60  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

Sir,  I  shall  open  the  whole  plan  to  you,  together  with 
such  observations  on  the  motions  as  may  tend  to  illustrate 
them  where  they  may  want  explanation.  The  first  is  a 
resolution  — 

5  That  the  Colonies  and  Plantations  of  Great  Britain  in 
North  America,  consisting  of  Fourteen  separate  Govern 
ments,  and  containing  Two  Millions  and  upwards  of  free 
inhabitants,  have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege  of 
electing  and  sending  any  Knights  and  Burgesses,  or 
10  others  to  represent  them  in  the  High  Court  of  Parlia 

ment. 

This   is    a   plain  matter  of  fact,    necessary  to  be   laid 
down,  and  (excepting  the  description)  it  is  laid  down  in 
the  language   of   the  Constitution  ;  it  is  taken   nearly 
15  verbatim  from  Acts  of  Parliament. 
The  second  is  like  unto  the  first  — 

That  the  said  Colonies  and  Plantations  have  been  liable  to, 
and  bounden  by,  several  subsidies,  payments,  rates,  and 
taxes,  given  and  granted  by  Parliament,  tho'ugh  the  said 

20  Colonies  and  Plantations  have  not  their  Knights  and 

Burgesses  in  the  said  High  Court  of  Parliament,  of  their 
own  election  to  represent  the  condition  of  their  country ; 
by  lack  whereof  they  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and 
grieved  by  subsidies  given,  granted,  and  assented  to,  in 

25  the  said  Court  in  a  manner  prejudicial  to  the  common 

wealth,  quietness,  rest,  and  peace  of  the  subjects  inhabit 
ing  within  the  same. 

Is  this  description  too  hot,  or  too  cold ;  too  strong,  or 
too  weak  ?  Does  it  arrogate  too  much  to  the  supreme 


O.V   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      61 

legislature  ?  Does  it  lean  too  much  to  the  claims  of 
the  people  ?  If  it  runs  into  any  of  these  errors,  the  fault 
is  not  mine.  It  is  the  language  of  your  own  ancient 
Acts  of  Parliament. 

"  Non  meus  hie  sermo,  sed  quae  praecepit  Ofellus,  ?    5 

Rusticus,  abnorniis  sapiens." 

It  is  the  genuine  produce  of  the  ancient,  rustic,  manly, 
homebred  sense  of  this  country  :  —  I  did  not  dare  to  rub 
off  a  particle  of  the  venerable  rust  that  rather  adorns  and 
preserves,  than  destroys  the  metal.  It  would  be  a  prof-  10 
anation  to  touch  with  a  tool  the  stones  which  construct 
the  sacred  altar  of  peace.  I  would  not  violate  with 
modern  polish  the  ingenuous  and  noble  roughness  of 
these  truly  constitutional  materials.  Above  all  things, 
I  was  resolved  not  to  be  guilty  of  tampering ;  the  odious  15 
vice  of  restless  and  unstable  minds.  I  put  my  foot  in 
the  tracks  of  our  forefathers,  where  I  can  neither  wan 
der  nor  stumble.  Determining  to  fix  articles  of  peace,  I 
was  resolved  not  to  be  wise  beyond  what  was  wrritten ; 
I  was  resolved  to  use  nothing  else  than  the  form  of  20 
sound  words ;  to  let  others  abound  in  their-  own  sense, 
and  carefully  to  abstain  from  all  expressions  of  my  own. 
What  the  Law  has  said,  I  say.  In  all  things  else  I  am 
silent.  I  have  no  organ  but  for  her  words.  This,  if  it 
be  not  ingenious,  I  am  sure  is  safe.  25 

There  are  indeed  words  expressive  of  grievance  in  this 
second  resolution,  which  those  who  are  resolved  always 
to  be  in  the  right  will  deny  to  contain  matter  of  fact, 
as  applied  to  the  present  case ;  although  Parliament 


62  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

thought  them  true,  with  regard  to  the  counties  of  Ches 
ter  and  Durham.  They  will  deny  that  the  Americans 
were  ever  "  touched  and  grieved  "  with  the  taxes.  If 
they  consider  nothing  in'  taxes  but  their  weight  as 
5  pecuniary  impositions,  there  might  be  some  pretense  for 
this  denial.  But  men  may  be  sorely  touched  and  deeply 
grieved  in  their  privileges,  as  well  as  in  their  purses. 
Men  may  lose  little  in  property  by  the  act  which  takes 
away  all  their  freedom.  When  a  man  is  robbed  of  a 

10  trifle  on  the  highway,  it  is  not  the  twopence  lost  that 
constitutes  the  capital  outrage.  This  is  not  confined  to 
privileges.  Even  ancient  indulgences  withdrawn,  with 
out  offense  on  the  part  of  those  who  enjoyed  such 
favors,  operate  as  grievances.  But  were  the  Americans 

15  then  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the  taxes,  in  some 
measure,  merely  as  taxes  ?  If  so,  why  were  they  almost 
all  either  wholly  repealed  or  exceedingly  reduced  ? 
Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved  even  by  the  regulat 
ing  duties  of  the  Sixth  of  George  the  Second  ?  Else 

20  why  were  the  duties  first  reduced  to  one-third  in  1764, 
and  afterwards  to  a  third  of  that  third  in  the  year  1766  ? 
Were  they  ftot  touched  and  grieved  by  the  Stamp  Act  ? 
I  shall  say  they  were,  until  that  tax  is  revived.  Were 
they  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the  duties  of  1767, 

25  which  were  likewise  repealed,  and  which  Lord  'Hills- 
borough  tells  you  (for  the  ministry)  were  laid  contrary 
to  the  true  principle  of  commerce  ?  Is  not  the  assur 
ance  given  by  that  noble  person  to  the  Colonies  of  a 
resolution  to  lay  no  more  taxes  on  them,  an  admission 
that  taxes  would  touch  and  grieve  them?  Is  not  the 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      63 

resolution  of  the  Noble  Lord  in  the  Blue  Ribbon,  now 
standing  on  your  Journals,  the  strongest  of  all  proofs 
that  Parliamentary  subsidies  really  touched  and  grieved 
them  ?  Else  why  all  these  changes,  modifications,  re 
peals,  assurances,  and  resolutions  ?  5 
The  next  proposition  is  — 

That,  from  the  distance  of  the  said  Colonies,  and  from 
other  circumstances,  no  method  hath  hitherto  been  de 
vised  for  procuring  a  representation  in  Parliament  for 
the  said  Colonies.  10 

This  is  an  assertion  of  a  fact.  I  go  no  farther  on  the 
paper,  though,  in  my  private  judgment,  a  useful  repre 
sentation  is  impossible,  —  I  am  sure  it  is  not  desired  by 
them,  nor  ought  it  perhaps  by  us,  —  but  I  abstain  from 
opinions.  15 

The  fourth  Resolution  is,  — 

That  each  of  the  said  Colonies  hath  within  itself  a  body, 
chosen  in  part,  or  in  the  whole,  by  the  freemen,  free 
holders,  or  other  free  inhabitants  thereof,  commonly 
called  the  General  Assembly,  or  General  Court ;  with  20 
powers  legally  to  raise,  levy,  and  assess,  according  to  the 
several  usage  of  such  Colonies,  duties  and  taxes  towards 
defraying  all  sorts  of  public  services. 

This  competence  in  the  Colony  Assemblies  is  certain. 
It  is  proved  by  the  whole  tenor  of  their  Acts  of  Supply  25 
in  all  the   Assemblies  in  which  the  constant  style  of 
granting  is  "  an  aid  to  his  Majesty  ; "  and  Acts  granting 
to  the  Crown  have  regularly  for  near  a  century  passed 


64  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

the  public  offices  without  dispute.  Those  who  have  been 
pleased  paradoxically  to  deny  this  right,  holding  that 
none  but  the  British  Parliament  can  grant  to  the  Crown, 
are  wished  to  look  to  what  is  done,  not  only  in  the 

5  Colonies,  but  in  Ireland,  in  one  uniform  unbroken  tenor 
every  session.  Sir,  I  am  surprised  that  this  doctrine 
should  come  from  some  of  the  law  servants  of  the 
Crown.  I  say,  that  if  the  Crown  could  be  responsible, 
his  Majesty  —  but  certainly  the  ministers,  and  even 

10  these  law  officers  themselves,  through  whose  hands  the 
Acts  pass,  biennially  in  Ireland,  or  annually  in  the 
Colonies  —  are  in  a  habitual  course  of  committing  im- 
peachable  offenses.  What  habitual  offenders  have  been 
all  Presidents  of  the  Council,  all  Secretaries  of  State,  all 

15  First  Lords  of  Trade,  all  Attorneys,  and  all  Solicitors 
General !  However,  they  are  safe,  as  no  one  impeaches 
them ;  and  there  is  no  ground  of  charge  against  them, 
except  in  their  own  unfounded  theories. 

The  fifth  resolution  is  also  a  resolution  of  fact  — 

20  That  the  said  General  Assemblies,  General  Courts,  or  other 
bodies  legally  qualified  as  aforesaid,  have  at  sundry 
times  freely  granted  several  large  subsidies  and  public 
aids  for  his  Majesty's  service,  according  to  their  abilities, 
when  required  thereto  by  letter  from  one  of  his  Majesty's 

25  principal  Secretaries  of  State  ;  and  that  their  right  to 

grant  the  same,  and  their  cheerfulness  and  sufficiency  in 
the  said  grants  have  been  at  sundry  times  acknowledged 
by  Parliament. 

To  say  nothing  of  their  great  expenses  in  the  Indian 
wars,  and  not  to  take  their  exertion  in  foreign  ones,  so 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   TUE  COLONIES.      65 

high  as  the  supplies  in  the  year  1695 ;  not  to  go  back 
to  their  public  contributions  in  the  year  1710 ;  I  shall 
begin  to  travel  only  where  the  Journals  give  me  light, 
resolving  to  deal  in  nothing  but  fact,  authenticated  by 
Parliamentary  record,  and  to  build  myself  wholly  on  5 
that  solid  basis. 

On  the  4th  of  April,  1748,  a  committee  of  this  House 
came  to  the  following  resolution  :  — 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Committee,  that  it 
is  just  and  reasonable  that  the  several  Provinces  and  10 
Colonies  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  New  Hampshire,  Con 
necticut,  and  Rhode  Island,  be  reimbursed  the  expenses 
they  have  been  at  in  taking  and  securing  to  the  Crown 
of  Great  Britain  the  Island  of  Cape  Breton  and  its  de 
pendencies.  15 

The  expenses  were  immense  for  such  Colonies.  They 
were  above  £200,000  sterling ;  money  first  raised  and 
advanced  on  their  public  credit. 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1756,  a  message  from  the 
King  came  to  us  to  this  effect :  —  20 

His  Majesty,  being  sensible  of  the  zeal  and  vigor  with  which 
his  faithful  subjects  of  certain  Colonies  in  North  America 
have  exerted  themselves  in  defense  of  his  Majesty's  just 
rights  and  possessions,  recommends  it  to  this  House  to 
take  the  same  into  their  consideration,  and  to  enable  25 
his  Majesty  to  give  them  such  assistance  as  may  be  a 
proper  reward  and  encouragement. 

On  the  3d  of  February,  1756,  the  House  came  to  a 
suitable  resolution,  expressed  in  words  nearly  the  same 


66  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

as  those  of  the  message  ;  but  with  the  further  addition 
that  the  money  then  voted  was  as  an  encouragement  to  the 
Colonies  to  exert  themselves  with  vigor.  It  will  not  be 
necessary  to  go  through  all  the  testimonies  which  your 
5  own  records  have  given  to  the  truth  of  my  Resolutions. 
I  will  only  refer  you  to  the  places  in  the  Journals  :  — 

Vol.  xxvii.  —  16th  and  19th  May,  1757. 

Vol.  xxviii.  —  June  1,  1758  ;  April  26  and  30,  1759  ;  March 

26  and  31,  and  April  28,  1760  ;  Jan.  9  and  20,  1761. 
10       Vol.  xxix.  —  Jan.  22  and  26,  1762  ;  March  14  and  17,  1763. 

Sir,  here  is  the  repeated  acknowledgment  of  Parlia 
ment  that  the  Colonies  not  only  gave,  but  gave  to 
satiety.  This  nation  has  formally  acknowledged  two 
things  :  first,  that  the  Colonies  had  gone  beyond  their 

15  abilities,  Parliament  having  thought  it  necessary  to 
reimburse  them  ;  secondly,  that  they  had  acted  legally 
and  laudably  in  their  grants  of  money  and  their  main 
tenance  of  troops,  since  the  compensation  is  expressly 
given  as  reward  and  encouragement.  Reward  ia-Jiot 

20  bestowed  for  acts  that  are  unlawful  ^  and  ennnurage- 
ment  is  not  held  out  to  tilings  that  deserve  reprehension. 
My  resolution,  therefore,  does  nothing  more  than  collect 
into  one  proposition  what  is  scattered  through  your 
Journals.  I  give  you  nothing  but  your  own;  and  you 

25  cannot  refuse  in  the  gross  what  you  have  so  often 
acknowledged  in  detail.  The  admission  of  this,  which 
w  ill  be  so  honorable  to 


be  mortal  to  all  the  miserable  stories  by  which  the  pas 
sions  of   the  misguided   people  have  been  engaged   in 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      67 

an  unhappy  system.     The  people   heard,  indeed,  from 
the  beginning  of  these  disputes  one  thing  continually 
dinned  in  their  ears,  that  reason  and  justice  demanded 
that  the  Americans,  who  paid  no  taxes,  should  be  com 
pelled  to  contribute.     How  did  that  fact  of  their  paying  5 
nothing  stand  when  the  taxing  system  began  ?     When 
Mr.   Grenville  began  to  form  his  system  of    American 
revenue,  he    stated   in   this    House    that   the    Colonies 
were  then  in  debt  two  millions  six  hundred   thousand 
pounds  sterling  money,  and  was  of  opinion  they  would  10 
discharge  that  debt  in  four  years.     On  this  state,  those 
untaxed  people  were  actually  subject  to  the  payment  of 
taxes  to  the  amount  of ,  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
a  year.     In  fact,  however,  Mr.  Grenville  was  mistaken. 
The  funds  given  for  sinking  the   debt  did    not    prove  15 
quite  so  ample  as  both  the  Colonies  and  he  expected. 
The  calculation  was  too   sanguine  ;    the   reduction  was 
not  completed  till  some  years  after,   and    at  different 
times  in  different"  Colonies.     However,  the  taxes  after 
the  war  continued  too  great  to  bear  any  addition,  with  20 
prudence  or  propriety ;  and  when  the  burthens  imposed 
in  consequence  of  former  requisitions  were  discharged, 
our  tone  became  too  high  to  resort  again  to  requisition. 
No  Colony,  since  that  time,  ever  has  had  any  requisition 
whatsoever  made  to  it.  25 

We  see  the  sense  of  the  Crown  and  the  sense  of  Par 
liament  on  the  productive  nature  of  a  revenue  by  grant. 
Now  search  the  same  Journals  for  the  produce  of  the 
revenue  by  imposition.  Where  is  it  ?  Let  us  know 
the  yolume  and  the  page.  What  is  the  gross,  what  is 


68  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

the  net  produce  ?  To  what  service  is  it  applied  ?  How 
have  you  appropriated  its  surplus  ?  What,  can  none  of 
the  many  skillful  index-makers  that  we  are  now  em 
ploying  find  any  trace  of  it  ?  Well,  let  them  and  that 
5  rest  together.  But  are  the  Journals,  which  say  nothing 
of  the  revenue,  as  silent  on  the  discontent  ?  Oh,  no ! 
a  child  may  find  it.  It  is  the  melancholy  burthen  and 
blot  of  every  page. 

I  think  then  I  am,  from  those  Journals,  justified  in 
10  the  sixth  and  last  resolution,  which  is  — 

That  it  hath  been  found  by  experience  that  the  manner  of 
granting  the  said  supplies  and  aids  by  the  said  General 
Assemblies  hath  been  more  agreeable  to  the  said  Colonies, 
and  more  beneficial  and  conducive  to  the  public  service 
15  than  the  mode  of  giving  and  granting  aids  in  Parliament, 

to  be  raised  and  paid  in  the  said  Colonies. 

This  makes  the  whole  of  the  fundamental  part  of  the 
plan.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible.  You  cannot  say 
that  you  were  driven  by  any  necessity  to  an  exercise  of 

20  the  utmost  rights  of  legislature.  You  cannot  assert 
that  you  took  on  yourselves  the  task  of  imposing  Colony 
taxes  from  the  want  of  another  legal  body  that  is  com 
petent  to  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  exigencies  of  the 
State  without  wounding  the  prejudices  of  the  people. 

25  Neither  is  it  true  that  the  body  so  qualified,  and  having 
that  competence,  had  neglected  the  duty. 

The  question  now,  on  all  this  accumulated  matter, 
is :  whether  you  will  choose  to  abide  by  a  profitable 
experience,  or  a  mischievous  theory  ;  whether  you  choose 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      69 

to  build  on  imagination,  or  fact ;  whether  you  prefer 
enjoyment,  or  hope ;  satisfaction  in  your  subjects,  or 
discontent  ? 

If  these  propositions  are  accepted,  everything  which 
has  been  made  to  enforce  a  contrary  system,  must,  I  5 
take  it  for  granted,  fall  along  with  it.  On  that  ground, 
I  have  drawn  the  following  resolution,  which,  when  it 
comes  to  be  moved,  will  naturally  be  divided  in  a  proper 
manner  :  — 

That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act,  made  in  the  seventh  10 
year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  An 
Act  for  granting  certain  duties  in  the  British  Colonies 
and  Plantations  in  America ;  for  allowing  a  drawback  of 
the  duties  of  Customs  upon  the  exportation  from  this  King 
dom,  of  coffee  and  cocoa-nuts  of  the  produce  of  the  said  15 
Colonies  or  Plantations  ;  for  discontinuing  the  drawbacks 
payable  on  china  earthenware  exported  to  America ;  and 
for  more  effectually  preventing  the  clandestine  running  of 
goods  in  the  said  Colonies  and  Plantations.  —  And  that 
it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act,  made  in  the  fourteenth  20 
year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  An 
Act  to  discontinue,  in  such  manner,  and  for  such  time, 
as  are  therein  mentioned,  the  landing  and  discharging, 
lading  or  shipping,  of  goods,   wares,  and  merchandise, 
at  the  town   and  within  the  harbor  of  Boston,  in  the  25 
province    of   Massachusetts   Bay,  in    North  America.  — 
And  that  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act,  made  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  in 
tituled,  An  Act  for  the  impartial  administration  of  jus 
tice,  in  the  cases  of  persons  questioned  for  any  acts  done  30 
by  them,  in  the  execution  of  the  law,  or  for  the  suppres- 


70  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

sion  of  riots   and  tumults,  in    the  province    of    Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  in  New  England And  that  it  may  be 

proper  to  repeal  an  Act,  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of 

the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  An  Act  .for 

5  the  better  regulating  of  the  Government  of  the  province 

of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New  England.  —  And,  also, 

that  it  may  be  proper  to  explain    and  amend    an  Act, 

made  in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Henry 

the  Eighth,  intituled,  An  Act  for  the  Trial  of  Treasons 

10  committed  out  of  the  King's  Dominions. 

I  wish,  Sir,  to  repeal  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  because 
(independently  of  the  dangerous  precedent  of  suspend 
ing  the  rights  of  the  subject  during  the  King's  pleasure) 
it  was  passed,  as  I  apprehend,  with  less  regularity,  and 

15  on  more  partial  principles,  than  it  ought.  The  corpora 
tion  of  Boston  was  not  heard  before  it  was  condemned. 
Other  towns,  full  as  guilty  as  she  was,  have  not  had 
their  ports  blocked  up.  Even  the  Restraining  Bill  of 
the  present  Session  does  not  go  to  the  length  of  the 

20  Boston  Port  Act.  The  same  ideas  of  prudence  which 
induced  you  not  to  extend  equal  punishment  to  equal 
guilt,  even  when  you  were  punishing,  induced  me, 
who  mean  not  to  chastise,  but  to  reconcile,  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  punishment  already  partially  in- 

25  flicted. 

Ideas  of  prudence  and  accommodation  to  circum 
stances  prevent  you  from  taking  away  the  charters  of 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  as  you  have  taken  away 
that  of  Massachusetts  Colony,  though  the  Crown  has  far 
less  power  in  the  two  former  provinces  than  it  enjoyed 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      71 

in  the  latter ;  and  though  the  abuses  have  been  full  as 
great,  and  as  flagrant,  in  the  exempted  as  in  the  pun 
ished.  The  same  reasons  of  prudence  and  accommoda 
tion  have  weight  with  me  in  restoring  the  charter  of 
Massachusetts  Bay.  Besides,  Sir,  the  Act  which  changes  5 
the  charter  of  Massachusetts  is  in  many  particulars  so 
exceptionable,  that  if  I  did  not  wish  absolutely  to  re 
peal,  I  would  by  all  means  desire  to  alter  it,  as  several  of 
its  provisions  tend  to  the  subversion  of  all  public  and 
private  justice.  Such,  among  others,  is  the  power  in  10 
the  governor  to  change  the  sheriff  at  his  pleasure,  and 
to  make  a  new  returning  officer  for  every  special  cause. 
It  is  shameful  to  behold  such  a  regulation  standing 
among  English  laws. 

The  Act  for  bringing  persons  accused  of  committing  15 
murder  under  the  orders  of  Government  to  England  for 
trial  is   but  temporary.     That   Act  has  calculated  the 
probable  duration  of  our  quarrel  with  the  Colonies  and 
is  accommodated  to  that  supposed  duration.     I  would 
hasten  the  happy  moment  of  reconciliation  ;  and  there-  20 
fore  must,  on  my  principle,  get  rid  of  that  most  justly 
obnoxious  Act. 

The  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  the  Trial  of  Trea 
sons,  I  do  not  mean  to  take  away,  but  to  confine  it  to 
its  proper  bounds  and  original  intention;  to  make  it  25 
expressly  for  Trial  of  Treasons  (and  the  greatest  trea 
sons  may  be  committed)  in  places  where  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  Crown  does  not  extend. 

W™ll  ftVJ:   fifYT~    ^    *l™     Pnln^nn      n       P     '  1  1    '  ^ 


72  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

judicature;    for  which  purpose,  Sir,  I  propose  the  f ol- 

lo\viiirr  resolution  i 

That,  from  the  time  when  the  General  Assembly  or  Gen 
eral  Court  of  any  Colony  or  Plantation  in  North  Amer- 
5  ica  shall  have  appointed  by  Act  of  Assembly,  duly 

confirmed,  a  settled  salary  to  the  offices  of  the  Chief 
Justice  and  other  Judges  of  the  Superior  Court,  it  may 
be  proper  that  the  said  Chief  Justice  and  other  judges  of 
the  Superior  Courts  of  such  Colony,  shall  hold  his  and 

10  their  office  and  offices  during  their  good  behavior ;  and 

shall  not  be  removed  therefrom,  but  when  the  said  re 
moval  shall  be  adjudged  by  his  Majesty  in  Council,  upon 
a  hearing  on  complaint  from  the  General  Assembly,  or 
^on  a  complaint  from  the  Governor,  or  Council,  or  the 

15  House  of  Representatives  severally,  or  of  the  Colony  in 

which  the  said  Chief  Justice  and  other  Judges  have  ex 
ercised  the  said  offices. 

The  next  resolution  relates  to  the  Courts  of  Admi 
ralty.  It  is  this  :  — 

20  That  it  may  be  proper  to  regulate  the  Courts  of  Admiralty, 
or  Vice- Admiralty,  authorized  by  the  fifteenth  Chapter 
of  the  Fourth  of  George  the  Third,  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  make  the  same  more  commodious  to  those  who  sue,  or 
are  sued,  in  the  said  Courts,  and  to  provide  for  the  more 

25  decent  maintenance  of  the  Judges  in  the  same. 

These  Courts  I  do  not  wish  to  take  away ;  they  are  in 
themselves  proper  establishments.  This  Court  is  one  of 
the  capital  securities  of  the  Act  of  Navigation.  The 
extent  of  its  jurisdiction,  indeed,  has  been  increased; 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      73 

but  this  is  altogether  as  proper,  and  is  indeed  on  many 
accounts  more  eligible,  where  new  powers  were  wanted, 
than  a  Court  absolutely  new.  But  Courts  incommo 
diously  situated  in  effect  deny  justice ;  and  a  Court 
partaking  in  the  fruits  of  its  own  condemnation  is  a  5 
robber.  The  Congress  complain,  and  complain  justly, 
of  this  grievance. 

These    are   the   three   consequential  propositions.     I 
have   thought   of   too   or   three  more;    but  they   come 
rather  too  near  detail,  and  to  the  province  of  executive  10 
government,  which  I  wish  Parliament  always  to  super 
intend,  never  to  assume.     If  the  first  six  are  granted, 
congruity  will  carry  the  latter  three.     If  not,  the  things 
that  remain  unrcpealed  will  be,  I  hope,  rather  unseemly 
incumbrances    on   the    building,    than    very   materially  15 
detrimental  to  its  strength  and  stability. 

Here,    Sir,   I    should    close ;    but   I   plainly   perceive 
some  objections  remain,  which  I  ought,  if  possible,  to 
remove.     The    first    will    be,  that,  in    resorting  to  the 
doctrine  of  our  ancestors,  as  contained  in  the  preamble  20 
to  the  Chester  Act,  I  prove  too  much ;  that  the  griev 
ance  from  a  want  of  representation,  stated  in  that  pre 
amble,  goes  to  the  whole  of  legislation  as  well  as  to 
taxation,  and  that  the  Colonies,  grounding  themselves 
upon  that  doctrine,  will  apply  it  to  all  parts  of  legisla-  25 
tive  authority. 

To  this  objection,  with  all  possible  deference  and 
humility,  and  wishing  as  little  as  any  man  living  to 
impair  the  smallest  particle  of  our  supreme  authority, 


74  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

I  answer,  that  the  words  are  the  words  of  Parliament , 
and  not  mine;  and  that  all  false  and  inconclusive  in 
ferences  drawn  from  them  are  not  mine,  for  I  heartily 
disclaim  any  such  inference.  I  have  chosen  the  words 
5  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  which  Mr.  Grenville,  surely 
a  tolerably  zealous  and  very  judicious  advocate  for  the 
sovereignty  of  Parliament,  formerly  moved  to  have  read 
at  your  table  in  confirmation  of  his  tenets.  It  is  true 
that  Lord  Chatham  considered  these  preambles  as  de- 

10  claring  strongly  in  favor  of  his  opinions.  He  was  a  no 
less  powerful  advocate  for  the  privileges  of  the  Ameri 
cans.  Ought  I  not  from  hence  to  presume  that  these 
preambles  are  as  favorable  as  possible  to  both,  when 
properly  understood ;  favorable  both  to  the  rights  of 

15  Parliament,  and  to  the  privileges  of  the  dependencies  of 
this  Crown  ?  But,  Sir,  the  object  of  grievance  in  my 
resolution  I  have  not  taken  from  the  Chester,  but  from 
the  Durham  Act,  which  confines  the  hardship  of  want 
of  representation  to  the  case  of  subsidies,  and  which 

20  therefore  falls  in  exactly  with  the  case  of  the  Colonies. 
But  whether  the  unrepresented  counties  were  dejure  or 
de  facto  bound,  the  preambles  do  not  accurately  distin 
guish  ;  nor,  indeed,  was  it  necessary ;  for,  whether  de 
jure  or  de  facto,  the  Legislature  thought  the  exercise  of 

25  the  power  of  taxing,  as  of  right,  or  as  of  fact  without 
right,  equally  a  grievance,  and  equally  oppressive. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  Colonies  have,  in  any  general 
way,  or  in  any  cool  hour,  gone  much  beyond  the  demand 
of  immunity  in  relation  to  taxes.  It  is  not  fair  to  judge 
of  the  temper  or  dispositions  of  any  man,  or  any  set  of 


CLV  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      75 

men,  when  they  are  composed  and  at  rest,  from  their 
conduct  or  their  expressions  in  a  state  of  disturbance 
and  irritation.  It  is,  besides,  a  very  great  mistake  to 
imagine  that  mankind  follow  up  practically  any  specu 
lative  principle,  either  of  government  or  of  freedom,  as  5 
far  as  it  will  go  in  argument  and  logical  illation.  We 
Englishmen  stop  very  short  of  the  principles  upon 
which  we  support  any  given  part  of  our  Constitution, 
or  even  the  whole  of  it  together.  I  could  easily,  if  I 
had  not  already  tired  you,  give  you  very  striking  and  10 
convincing  instances  of  it.  This  is  nothing  but  what 
is  natural  and  proper.  All  government,  indeed  every 
human  benefit  and  enjoyment,  every  virtue,  and  every 
prudent  act,  is  founded  on  compromise  and  barter.  We 
balance  inconveniences;  \YL-  ^ivc  and  hike;  \ve  remit  ir> 
some  rights,  that  we  may  enjoy  others ;  and  we  choose 
rather  to  be  happy  citizens,  than  subtle  disputants.  As 
we  must  give  away  some  natural  liberty  to  enjoy  civil 
advantages,  so  we  must  sacrifice  some  civil  liberties  for 
the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  communion  and  20 
fellowship  of  a  great  empire.  But,  in  all  fair  dealings, 
the  thing  bought  must  bear  some  proportion  to  the  pur 
chase  paid.  None  will  barter  away  the  immediate  jewel 
of  his  soul.  Though  a  great  house  is  apt  to  make  slaves 
haughty,  yet  it  is  purchasing  a  part  of  the  artificial  im-  25 
portance  of  a  great  empire  too  dear,  to  pay  for  it  all 
essential  rights,  and  all  the  intrinsic  dignity  of  human 
nature.  None  of  us  who  would  not  risk  his  life  rather 
than  fall  under  a  government  purely  arbitrary.  But 
although  there  are  some  amongst  us  who  think  our 


76  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BUSKS 

Constitution  wants  many  improvements  .to  make  it  a 
complete  system  of  liberty,  perhaps  none  who  are  of 
that  opinion  would  think  it  right  to  aim  at  such  im 
provement  by  disturbing  his  country,  and  risking  every- 

5  thing  that  is  dear  to  him.  In  every  arduous  enterprise 
we  consider  what  we  are  to  lose,  as  well  as  what  we  are 
to  gain ;  and  the  more  and  better  stake  of  liberty  every 
people  possess,  the  less  they  will  hazard  in  a  vain 
attempt  to  make  it  more.  These  are  the  cords  of  man. 

10  Man  acts  from  adequate  motives  relative  to  his  interest, 
and  nut  on  metaphysical  speculations.  Aristotle,  the 
great  master  of  reasoning,  cautions  us,  and  with  great 
weight  and  propriety,  against  this  species  of  delusive 
geometrical  accuracy  in  moral  arguments,  as  the  most 

15  fallacious  of  all  sophistry. 

The  Americans  will  have  no  interest  contrary  to  the 
grandeur  and  glory  of  England,  when  they  are  not  op 
pressed  by  the  weight  of  it ;  and  they  will  rather  be  in 
clined  to  respect  the  acts  of  a  superintending  legislature 

20  when  they  see  them  the  acts  of  that  power  which  is  it 
self  the  security,  not  the  rival,  of  their  secondary  im 
portance.  In  this  assurance  my  mind  most  perfectly 
acquiesces ;  and  I  confess  I  feel  not  the  least  alarm  from 
the  discontents  which  are  to  arise  from  putting  people 

25  at  their  ease ;  nor  do  I  apprehend  the  destruction  of 
this  empire,  from  giving,  by  an  act  of  free  grace  and 
indulgence  to  two  millions  of  my  fellow-citizens,  some 
share  of  those  rights  upon  which  I  have  always  been 
taught  to  value  myself. 

It  is  said,  indeed,  that  this  power  of  granting,  vested 


O^  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      77 

in  American  Assemblies,  would  dissolve  the  unity  of  the 
empire,  which  was  preserved  entire,  although  Wales, 
and  Chester,  and  Durham  were  added  to  it.  Truly,_Mr. 
Speaker,  I  do  not  know  what  this  unity  means ;  nor  has 
it  ever  been  heard  of,  that  I  know,  in  the  constitutional  5 
policy  of  this  country.  The  very  idea  of  subordination 
of  parts  excludes  this  notion  of  simple  and  undivided 
unity.  England  is  the  head,  but  she  is  not  the  head 
and  the  members  too.  Ireland  has  ever  had  from  the 
beginning  a  separate,  but  not  an  independent,  legisla-  10 
ture,  which,  far  from  distracting,  promoted  the  union  of 
the  whole.  Everything  was  sweetly  and  harmoniously 
disposed  through  both  islands  for  the  conservation  of 
English  dominion,  and  the  communication  of  English 
liberties.  I  do  not  see  that  the  same  principles  might  15 
not  be  carried  into  twenty  islands,  and  with  the  same 
good  effect.  This  is  my  model  with  regard  to  America, 
as  far  as  the  internal  circumstances  of  the  two  countries 
are  the  same.  I  know  no  other  unity  of  this  empire 
than  I  can  draw  from  its  example  during  these  periods,  20 
when  it  seemed  to  my  poor  understanding  more  united 
than  it  is  now,  or  than  it  is  likely  to  be  by  the  present 
methods. 

But  since  I  speak  of  these  methods,  I  recollect,  Mr. 
Speaker,  almost  too  late,  that  I  promised,  before  I  fin-  25 
ished,  to  say  something  of  the  proposition  of  the  Noble 
Lord  on  the  floor,  which  has  been  so  lately  received  and 
stands  on  your  Journals.  I  must  be  deeply  concerned 
whenever  it  is  my  misfortune  to  continue  a  difference 


78  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

with  the  majority  of  this  House.  But  as  the  reasons 
for  that  difference  are  my  apology  for  thus  troubling 
you,  suffer  me  to  state  them  in  a  very  few  words.  I 
shall  compress  them  into  as  small  a  body  as  I  possibly 

5  can,  having  already  debated  that  matter  at  large  when 
the  question  was  before  the  committee. 

First,  then,  I  cannot  admit  that  proposition  of  a  ran 
som  by  auction,  because  it  is  a  mere  project.  It  is  a 
thing  new,  unheard  of,  supported  by  no  experience,  jus- 

10  tified  by  no  analogy,  without  example  of  our  ancestors, 
or  root  in  the  Constitution.  It  is  neither  regular  Par 
liamentary  taxation  nor  Colony  grant.  Experimentum  in 
corpore  mil  is  a  good  rule,  which  will  ever  make  me 
adverse  to  any  trial  of  experiments  on  what  is  cer- 

15  tainly  the  most  valuable  of  all  subjects,  the  peace  of 
this  empire. 

Secondly,  it  is  an  experiment  which  must  be  fatal  in 
the  end  to  our  Constitution.  For  what  is  it  but  a  scheme 
for  taxing  the  Colonies  in  the  ante-chamber  of  the  Noble 

20  Lord  and  his  successors  ?  To  settle  the  quotas  and  pro 
portions  in  this  House  is  clearly  impossible.  You,  Sir, 
may  flatter  yourself  you  shall  sit  a  state  auctioneer,  with 
your  hammer  in  your  hand,  and  knock  down  to  each 
Colony  as  it  bids.  But  to  settle  (on  the  plan  laid  down 

25  by  the  Noble  Lord)  the  true  proportional  payment  for 
four  or  five  and  twenty  governments,  according  to  the 
absolute  and  the  relative  wealth  of  each,  and  accord 
ing  to  the  British  proportion  of  wealth  and  burthen, 
is  a  wild  and  chimerical  notion.  This  new  taxation 
must  therefore  come  in  by  the  back  door  of  the  Con- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      79 

stitution.  Each  quota  must  be  brought  to  this  House 
ready  formed ;  you  can  neither  add  nor  alter.  You 
must  register  it.  You  can  do  nothing  further.  For 
on  what  grounds  can  you  deliberate  either  before  or 
after  the  proposition  ?  You  cannot  hear  the  counsel  5 
for  all  these  provinces,  quarreling  each  on  its  own 
quantity  of  payment  and  its  proportion  to  others.  If 
you  should  attempt  it,  the  Committee  of  Provincial 
Ways  and  Means,  or  by  whatever  other  name  it  will 
delight  to  be  called,  must  swallow  up  all  the  time  of  10 
Parliament. 

'Thirdly,  it  does  not  give  satisfaction  to  the  complaint 
of  the  Colonies.     They  complain  that  they  are  taxed 
without   their  consent ;    you   answer  that  you  will  fix 
the  sum  at  which  they  shall  be  taxed.     That  is,  you  15 
give  them  the  very  grievance  for  the  remedy.     You  tell 
them,  indeed,  that  you  will  leave  the  mode  to  themselves. 
I  really  beg  pardon,  —  it  gives  me  pain  to  mention  it,  — 
but  you  must  be  sensible  that  you  will  not  perform  this 
part  of  the  compact.     For,  suppose  the  Colonies  were  20 
to  lay  the  duties,  which  furnished  their  contingent,  upon 
the  impoitatiuii  uf  jemt  mmnifftetures ;  you  know  you 
would  never  suffer  such  a  tax  to  be  laid.     You  know, 
toOjIhaFyou  would  not  suffer  many  other  modes  of  tax 
ation.     So  that,  when  you  come  to  explain  yourself,  it  25 
will  be  found  that  you  will  neither  leave  to  themselves 
the  quantum  nor  the  mode,  nor,  indeed,  anything.     The 
whole  is  delusion  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

Fourthly,  this  method  of  ransom  by  auction,  unless  it 
be  universally  accepted,  will  plunge  you  into  great  and 


80  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

inextricable  difficulties.  In  what  year  of  our  Lord  are 
the  proportions  of  payments  to  be  settled  ?  To  say 
nothing  of  the  impossibility  that  Colony  agents  should 
have  general  powers  of  taxing  the  Colonies  at  their  dis- 
5  cretion,  consider,  I  implore  you,  that  the  communication 
by  special  messages  and  orders  between  these  agents 
and  their  constituents  on  each  variation  of  the  case, 
when  the  parties  come  to  contend  together,  and  to  dis 
pute  on  their  relative  proportions,  will  be  a  matter  of 

10  delay,  perplexity,  and  confusion  'that  never  can  have 
an  end. 

If  all  the  Colonies  do  not  appear  at  the  outcry,  what 
is  the  condition  of  those  assemblies  who  offer,  by  them 
selves  or  their  agents,  to  tax  themselves  up  to  your 

15  ideas  of  their  proportion  ?  The  refractory  Colonies  who 
refuse  all  composition  will  remain  taxed  only  to  your 
old  impositions,  which,  however  grievous  in  principle, 
are  trifling  as  to  production.  The  obedient  Colonies  in 
this  scheme  are  heavily  taxed;  the  refractory  remain 

20  unburthened.  What  will  you  do  ?  Will  you  lay  new 
and  heavier  taxes  by  Parliament  on  the  disobedient  ? 
Pray  consider  in  what  way  you  can  do  it.  You  are  per 
fectly  convinced,  that,  in  the  way  of  taxing,  you  can  do 
nothing  but  at  the  ports.  Now  suppose  it  is  Virginia 

25  that  refuses  to  appear  at  your  auction,  while  Maryland 
and  North  Carolina  bid  handsomely  for  their  ransom, 
and  are  taxed  to  your  quota,  how  will  you  put  these 
Colonies  on  a  par  ?  Will  you  tax  the  tobacco  of  Vir 
ginia  ?  If  you  do,  you  give  its  death-wound  to  ycur 
English  revenue  at  home,  and  to  one  of  the  very  great- 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH  THE   COLONIES.      81 

est  articles  of  your  own  foreign  trade.  If  you  tax  the 
import  of  that  rebellious  Colony,  what  do  you  tax  but 
your  own  manufactures,  or  the  goods  of  some  other 
obedient  and  already  well-taxed  Colony  ?  Who  has 
said  one  word  on  this  labyrinth  of  detail,  which  bewil-  5 
ders  you  more  and  more  as  you  enter  into  it  ?  Who  has 
presented,  who  can  present  you,  with  a  clew  to  lead  you 
out  of  it  ?  I  think,  Sir,  it  is  impossible  that  you  should 
not  recollect  that  the  Colony  bounds  are  so  implicated 
in  one  another  (you  know  it  by  your  other  experiments  10 
in  the  bill  for  prohibiting  the  New  England  fishery), 
that  you  can  lay  no  possible  restraints  on  almost  any  of 
them  which  may  not  be  presently  eluded,  if  you  do  not 
confound  the  innocent  with  the  guilty,  and  burthen  those 
whom,  upon  every  principle,  you  ought  to  exonerate.  15 
He  must  be  grossly  ignorant  of  America,  who  thinks 
that,  without  falling  into  this  confusion  of  all  rules  of 
equity  and  policy,  you  can  restrain  any  single  Colony, 
especially  Virginia  arid  Maryland,  the  central  and  most 
important  of  them  all.  20 

Let  it  also  be  considered  that,  either  in  the  present 
confusion  you  settle  a  permanent  contingent,  which  will 
and  must  be  trifling,  and  then  you  have  no  effectual 
revenue  ;  or  you  change  the  quota  at  every  exigency, 
and  then  on  every  new  repartition  you  will  have  a  new  25 
quarrel. 

Reflect,  besides,  that  when  you  have  fixed  a  quota  for 
every  Colony,  you  have  not  provided  for  prompt  and 
punctual  payment.  Suppose  one,  two,  five,  ten  years' 
arrears.  You  cannot  issue  a  Treasury  Extent  against 


82  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

the  failing  Colony.  You  must  make  new  Boston  Port 
Bills,  new  restraining  laws,  new  Acts  for  dragging  men 
to  England  for  trial.  You  must  send  out  new  fleets, 
new  armies.  All  is  to  begin  again.  From  this  day 
5  forward  the  Empire  is  never  to  know  an  hour's  tran 
quillity.  An  intestine  fire  will  be  kept  alive  in  the 
bowels  of  the  Colonies,  which  one  time  or  other  must 
consume  this  whole  Empire.  I  allow,  indeed,  that  the 
empire  of  Germany  raises  her  revenue  and  her  troops 

10  by  quotas  and  contingents  ;  but  the  revenue  of  the 
empire,  and  the  army  of  the  empire,  is  the  worst 
revenue,  and  the  worst  army,  in  the  world. 

Instead  of  a  standing  revenue,  you  will  therefore  have 
a  perpetual  quarrel.     Indeed,  the  Noble  Lord  who  pro- 

is  posed  this  project  of  a  ransom  by  auction,  seemed  him 
self  to  be  of  that  opinion.  His  project  was  rather 
designed  for  breaking  the  union  of  the  Colonies,  than 
for  establishing  a  revenue.  He  confessed  he  appre 
hended  that  his  proposal  would  not  be  to  their  taste. 

20  I  say  this  scheme  of  disunion  seems  to  be  at  the  bottom 
of  the  project  ;  for  I  will  not  suspect  that  the  Noble 
Lord  meant  nothing  but  merely  to  delude  the  nation  by 
an  airy  phantom  which  he  never  intended  to  realize. 
But  whatever  his  views  may  be,  as  I  propose  the  peace 

25  and  union  of  the  Colonies  as  the  very  foundation  of  my 
plan,  it  cannot  accord  with   one  whose   foundation    is 
'  perpetual  discord. 


Compare   the    two.      This    I    offer   to    give    you    is 
plain  "ana    simple;    the    other,    fiill   of   perplexed   and 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      83 


intricate  mazes.      This    is  milck  jfrhftt  harsh.      This  is 
found   by    experience   effectual  ipr    its   purposes  ;   the 

other  is  a  new  project.  This  is  universal  ;  the  other 
calculated  for  certain  Colonies  only.  This  is  imme 
diate  in  its  conciliatory  operation  ;  the  other  remote,  5 
contingent,  full  of  hazard.  .Mine  is  what  becomes  the 
dignity  of  a  ruling  people,  gratuitous,  unconditional, 
and  not  held  out  as  a  matter  of  bargain  -and  sale.  I 
have  done  my  duty  in  proposing  it  to  you.  I  have  in 
deed  tired  you  hy  a  long  discourse;  but  this  is  the  mis-  10 
fortune  of  those  to  whose  influence  nothing  will  be 
conceded,  and  who  must  win.  every  inch  of  their  ground 
by  argument.  You  have  heard  me  with  goodness.  May 
you  decide  with  wisdom!  For  mv  part;  I  feel  my 
mind  greatly  disburthened  by  what  I  have  done  to-day.  15 
I  have  been  the  less  fearful  of  trying  your  patience, 
because  on  this  subject  I  mean  to  spare  it  altogether 
in  fnfnTp  T  TIQVQ  f.l»4ff  tmmf™*  -t-^of  in  air^y  stage 
of  the  American  affairs  I  haye  steadily  opposed  the 
measures  that  have  produced  the  confusion,  and  may  20 
briiig_on  the  destruction.,  /of  "this  Empire.  I  now  go  so 
far  .as..  to  jiskLa^  proposal  of  my  own.  If  I  cannot  give 
peace  to  my  country,  I  give  it  to  my  conscience. 

But  what  (says  the  financier)  is  peace  to  us  without 
money  ?  Your  plan  gives  us  no  revenue.  No  !  But  it  25 
does,  for  it  secures  to  the  subject  the  power  of  REFUSAL, 
the  first  of  all  revenues.  Experience  is  a  cheat,  and 
fact  a  liar,  if  this  power  in  the  subject  of  proportioning 
his  grant,  or  of  not  granting  at  all,  has  not  been  found 
the  richest  mine  of  revenue  ever  discovered  by  the  skill 


84  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

or  by  the  fortune  of  man.  It  does  not,  indeed,  vote  you 
£152,750  lls.  2fd.,  nor  any  other  paltry  limited  sum. 
But  it  gives  the  strong  box  itself,  the  fund,  the  bank, 
from,  whence  only  revenues  can  arise  amongst  a  people 
5  sensible  of  freedom.  Posita  luditur  area.  Cannot  you, 
in  England  ;  cannot  you,  at  this  time  of  day ;  cannot  you, 
a  House  of  Commons  —  trust  to  the  principle  which  has 
raised  so  mighty  a  revenue,  and  accumulated  a  debt  of 
near  one  hundred  and  forty  millions  in  this  country  ?  Is 

10  this  principle  to  be  true  in  England  and  false  every 
where  else  ?  Is  it  not  true  in  Ireland  ?  Has  it  not 
hitherto  been  true  in  the  Colonies  ?  Why  should  you 
presume  that,  in  any  country,  a  body  duly  constituted 
for  any  function  will  neglect  to  perform  its  duty,  and 

15  abdicate  its  trust  ?  Such  a  presumption  would  go 
against  all  governments  in  all  modes.  But,  in  truth, 
this  dread  of  penury  of  supply  from  a  free  assembly 
has  no  foundation  in  nature.  For  first  observe  that, 
besides  the  desire  which  all  men  have  naturally  of 

20  supporting  the  honor  of  their  own  government,  that 
sense  of  dignity  and  that  security  to  property  which 
ever  attends  freedom,  has  a  tendency  to  increase  the 
stock  of  the  free  community.  Most  may  be  taken 
where  most  is  accumulated.  And  what  is  the  soil  or 

25  climate  where  experience  has  not  uniformly  proved 
that  the  voluntary  flow  of  heaped-up  plenty,  bursting 
from  the  weight  of  its  own  rich  luxuriance,  has  ever  run 
with  a  more  copious  stream  of  revenue  than  could  be 
squeezed  from  the  dry  husks  of  oppressed  indigence,  t}y 
the  straining  of  all  the  politic  machinery  in  the  world  ? 


CLV   CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.      8^ 

Next,  we  know  that  parties  must  ever  exist  in  a  free 
country.  We  know,  too,  that  the  emulations  of  such 
<.  parties,  their  contradictions,  their  reciprocal  necessities, 
their  hopes,  and  their  fears,  must  send  them  all  in  their 
turns  to  him  that  holds  the  balance  of  the  state.  The  5 
parties  are  the  gamesters;  but  Government  keeps  Hie 
table,  and  is  sure  to  be  the  winner  in  the  end.  When 
this  game  is  played,  I  really  think  it  is  more  to  be 
feared  that  the  people  will  be  exhausted  than  that 
Government  will  not  be  supplied.  Whereas,  whatever  10 
is  got  by  acts  of  absolute  power  ill  obeyed  because 
odious,  or  by  contracts  ill  kept  because  constrained, 
will  be  narrow,  feeble,  uncertain,  and  precarious. 

"  Ease  would  retract 
Vows  made  in  pain,  as  violent  and  void."  15 

I,  for  one,  protest  against  compounding  our  demands ; 
I  declare  against  compounding,  for  a  poor  limited  sum, 
the  immense,  ever-growing,  eternal  debt,  which  is  due 
to  generous  government  from  protected  freedom.  And 
so  may  I  speed  in  the  great  object  I  propose  to  you,  as  20 
I  think  it  would  not  only  be  an  act  of  injustice,  but 
would  be  the  worst  economy  in  the  world  to  compel  the 
Colonies  to  a  sum  certain,  either  in  the  way  of  ransom 
or  in  the  way  of  compulsory  compact. 

But  to  clear  up  my  ideas  on  this  subject :  a  revenue  25 
from  America  transmitted  hither  —  do  not  delude  your 
selves  —  you  never  can  receive  it ;    no,  not  a  shilling. 
We  have   experience  that  from  remote  countries   it  is 
not  to  be  expected.     If,  when  you  attempted  to  extract 


86  SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 

revenue  from  Bengal,  you  were  obliged  to  return  in 
loan  what  you  had  taken  in  imposition,  what  can  you 
expect  from  North  America  ?  For  certainly,  if  ever 
there  was  a  country  qualified  to  produce  wealth,  it  is 

5  India ;  or  an  institution  fit  for  the  transmission,  it  is 
the  East  India  Company.  America  has  none  of  these 
aptitudes.  If  America  gives  you  taxable  objects  on 
which  you  lay  your  duties  here,  and  gives  you,  at  the 
same  time,  a  surplus  by  a  foreign  sale  of  her  com- 

10  modities  to  pay  the  duties  on  these  objects,  which  you 
tax  at  home,  she  has  performed  her  part  to  the  British 
revenue.  But  with  regard  to  her  own  internal  estab 
lishments,  she  may,  I  doubt  not  she  will,  contribute  in 
moderation.  I  say  in  moderation,  for  she  ought  not  to 

15  be  permitted  to  exhaust  herself.  She  ought  to  be  re 
served  to  a  war,  the  weight  of  which,  with  the  enemies 
that  we  are  most  likely  to  have,  must  be  considerable  in 
her  quarter  of  the  globe.  There  she  may  serve  you,  and 
serve  you  essentially. 

20  For  that  service,  for  all  service,  whether  of  revenue, 
tra^eyor  empire,  my  trust  is  in  her  interest  in  the  Brit- 
isfc-Constitution.  My  hold  of  the  Colonies  is  in  the  close 
affection  which  grows  from  common  names,  from  kin 
dred  blood,  from  similar  privileges,  and  equal  protection. 

25  These  are  ties,  which,  though  light  as  air,  are  as  strong 
as  links  of  iron.  Let  the  Colonists  always  keep  the  idea 
of  their  civil  rights^ associated  with  your  government  — 
they  will  cling  and  grapple  to  you,  and  no  force  under 
heaven  will  be  of  power  to  tear  them  from  their  alle 
giance.  But  let  it  be  once  understood  that  your  govern- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      87 

ment  may  be  one  thing,  and  their  privileges  another; 
that  these  two  things  may  exist  without  any  mutual  re 
lation —  the  cement  is  gone,  the  cohesion  is  loosened, 
and  everything  hastens  to  decay  arid  dissolution.  As 
long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep  the  sovereign  5 
authority  of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of  liberty, 
the  sacred  temple  consecrated  to  our  common  faith, 
wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons  of  England  worship 
freedom,  they  will  turn  their  faces  toward  you.  The 
more  they  multiply,  the  more  friends  you  will  have ;  the  10 
more  ardently  they  love  liberty,  the  more  perfect  will  be 
their  obedience.  Slavery  they  can  have  anywhere.  It 
is  a  weed  that  grows  in  every  soil.  They  may  have  it 
from  Spain,  they  may  have  it  from  Prussia.  But  until 
you  become  lost  to  all  feeling  of  your  true  interest  and  15 
your  natural  dignity,  freedom  they  can  have  from  none 
but  you.  This  is  the  commodity  of  price,  of  which  you 
have  the  monopoly.  This  is  the  true  Act  of  Navigation, 
which  binds  to  you  the  commerce  of  the  Colonies,  and 
through  them  secures  to  you  the  wealth  of  the  world.  20 
Deny  them  this  participation  of  freedom,  and  you  break 
that  sole  bond,  which  originally  made,  and  must  still 
preserve,  the  unity  of  the  Empire.  Do  not  entertain  so 
weak  an  imagination,  as  that  your  registers  and  your 
bonds,  your  affidavits  and  your  sufferances,  your  cockets  25 
and  your  clearances,  are  what  form  the  great  securities 
of  your  commerce.  Do  not  dream  that  your  letters  of 
office,  and  your  instructions,  and  your  suspending 
clauses,  are  the  things  that  hold  together  the  great 
contexture  of  the  mysterious  whole.  These  things  do 


88  SPEECH   OF  EDMUND   BURKE 

not  make  your  government.  Dead  instruments,  pas 
sive  tools  as  they  are,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English 
communion  that  gives  all  their  life  and  efficacy  to  them. 
It  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  Constitution,  which  in- 
5  fused  through  the  mighty  mass,  pervades,  feeds,  unites, 
invigorates,  vivifies  every  part  of  the  Empire,  even  down 
to  the  minutest  member. 

Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  everything  for 
us  here  in  England  ?  Do  you  imagine,  then,  that  it  is 

10  the  Land  Tax  Act  which  raises  your  revenue  ?  that  it  is 
the  annual  vote  in  the  Committee  of  Supply  which  gives 
you  your  army  ?  or  that  it  is  the  Mutiny  Bill  which  in 
spires  it  with  bravery  and  discipline  ?  No !  surely  no  ! 
It  is  the  love  of  the  people,  it  is  their  attachment  to 

15  their  government,  from  the  sense  of  the  deep  stake  they 
have  in  such  a  glorious  institution,  which  gives  you 
your  army  and  your  navy,  and  infuses  into  both  that 
liberal  obedience,  without  which  your  army  would  be 
a  base  rabble,  and  your  navy  nothing  but  rotten  tim- 

20  ber. 

All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and 
chimerical  to  the  profane  herd  of  those  vulgar  and  me 
chanical  politicians  who  have  no  place  among  us ;  a 
sort  of  people  who  think  that  nothing  exists  but  what 

25  is  gross  and  material ;  and  who,  therefore,  far  from 
being  qualified  to  be  directors  of  the  great  movement 
of  empire,  are  not  fit  to  turn  a  wheel  in  the  machine. 
But  to  men  truly  initiated  and  rightly  taught,  these 
ruling  and  master  principles  which,  in  the  opinion  of 
such  men  as  I  have  mentioned,  have  no  substantial  exis- 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.      89 

tence,  are  in  truth  everything,  and  all  in  all.  Magna 
nimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the  truest  wisdom ;  and 
a  great  empire  and  little  minds  go  ill  together.  If  we 
are  conscious  of  our  station,  and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill 
our  places  as  becomes  our  situation  and  ourselves,  we  5 
ought  to  auspicate  all  our  public  proceedings  on  Amer 
ica  with  the  old  warning  of  the  church,  Sursum  corda ! 
We  ought  to  elevate  our  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that 
trust  to  which  the  order  of  Providence  has  called  us. 
By  adverting  to  the  dignity  of  this  high  calling,  our  10 
ancestors  have  turned  a  savage  wilderness  into  a  glo 
rious  empire,  and  have  made  the  most  extensive,  and 
the  only  honorable  conquests,  not  by  destroying,  but  by 
promoting  the  wealth,  the  number,  the  happiness,  of  the 
human  race.  Let  us  get  an  American  revenue  as  we  15 
have  got  an  American  empire.  English  privileges  have 
made  it  all  that  it  is ;  English  privileges  alone  will  make 
it  all  it  can  be. 

In  full  confidence   of  this  unalterable   truth,   I  now 
(quod  felix  faustumque  sit)  lay  the  first  stone  of  the  20 
temple  of  peace ;  and  I  move  you  — 

That   the  Colonies  and  Plantations   of   Great  Britain   in 
North  America,  consisting  of  Fourteen  separate  govern- 

ments,  and  containing  Two  "Millions  and  upwards  of  free 
inhabitants,  have  not  had  the  liberty  and   privilege  of  25 
electing   and   sending    any   Knights    and   Burgesses,    or 
others,  to  represent  them  in  the  High  Court  of  Parlia 
ment. 


NOTES. 


INTKODUCTOKY   NOTE. 

THE  young  student  is  supposed  to  be  acquainted  with  the  principal 
events  of  the  twelve  years'  constitutional  struggle  that  preceded  the 
delivery  of  tbis  speech.  What  happened  in  America  he  will  find  pre 
sented  in  any  good  United  States  History,  such  as  Fiske  or  Johnston, 
or  much  better  in  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams  (Am.  Commonwealth  Series'). 
The  situation  in  England  is  concisely  and  clearly  portrayed  in  Green's 
Short  History  of  the  English  People,  Chapter  X.,  Sec.  ii.  See  also 
Macaulay's  Second  Essay  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  for  a  brilliant  group 
ing  with  Pitt  as  central  figure. 


Sir.    Addressing  the  speaker,    austerity  of  the  Chair  = 

the  dignity  of  the  House  as  personified  in  the  Speaker. 

grand  penal  Bill.  This  was  the  act  proposed  by  Lord  North 
on  Feb.  10,  1775,  and  was  entitled  "An  Act  to  restrain  the 
Commerce  of  the  Provinces  of  Massachuset's  Bay  and  New 
Hampshire'  and  Colonies  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island, 
and  Providence  Plantation,  in  North  America,  to  Great 
Britain,  Ireland,  and  the  British  Islands  in  the  West  Indies; 
and  to  prohibit  such  Provinces  and  Colonies  from  carrying  on 
any  Fishery  on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland,  and  other  places 
therein  mentioned,  under  certain  conditions  and  limitations." 

mixture  of  coercion  and  restraint.  Referring  to  the 
provisions  of  the  Act  just  mentioned. 

When  I  first  had  the  honor;  i.e.,  in  1765  —  the  year  when 
the  Stamp  Act  was  passed. 

bloAATn  about  by  every  wind,  etc.  Ephesians  iv.  14.  The 
phraseology  of  Burke,  Bright,  and  Gladstone  shows  an  inti 
mate  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  the  Bible  —  tbe  ver 
sion  of  1611.  (The  revised  version  is  better  Greek,  but  not 
better  English.) 


2  :    4 

10 
25 


94 


NOTES   TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BUEKE 


At  that  period.  When  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed  (Feb. 
21,  1766). 

Everything  administered.  The  Tea-Tax;  the  Boston 
Port  Bill ;  the  Massachusetts  Colony  Bill ;  the  Transportation 
Bill;  the  Quebec  Act.  Consult  your  United  States  History 
under  the  years  1770-1774. 

a  situation  .  .  .  which  I  dare  not  name.  The  battle  of 
Lexington  was  fought  less  than  a  month  after  the  delivery 
of  this  speech. 

a  worthy  member :  Mr.  Rose  Fuller.  He  owes  his  acci 
dental  immortality  entirely  to  this  reference  by  Burke. 

platform:  in  the  old  sense  of  sketch  or  plan.  So  used  by 
Bacon  in  his  Essay,  "  Of  Gardens  "  (last  paragraph). 

disreputably  =  with  discredit  (to  the  maker  of  the  propo 
sition). 

paper  government.  Perhaps  Burke  was  thinking  of  Caro 
lina,  which  had  the  misfortune  to  have  its  first  constitution 
drawn  up  by  the  metaphysician  Locke.  He  proposed  to  have 
society  organized  along  feudal  lines — barons,  landgraves, 
"  caziques,"  and  serfs.  The  serfs  were  to  be  bought  and  sold 
with  the  soil.  The  plan  was  a  ridiculous  failure  —  like  the 
dropsical  constitutions  of  some  of  our  recently  admitted  States. 

the  shadowy  boundaries.  This  figure  seems  to  be  an 
echo  from  Pope's  Essay  on  Man,  ii.,  205-210. 

Extremes  in  Nature  equal  ends  produce, 

In  Man  they  join  to  some  mysterious  use; 

Tho'  each  by  turns  the  other's  bound  invade, 

As,  in  some  well-wrought  picture,  light  and  shade, 

And  oft  so  mix,  the  diflTrence  is  too  nice 

Where  ends  the  Virtue,  or  begins  the  Vice. 

Burke  was  fond  of  painting,  and  a  good  judge  of  pictures ; 
"  The  best  I  know,"  said  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

former  unsuspecting  confidence.  "The  Congress  [at 
Philadelphia]  has  used  an  expression  with  regard  to  this  paci 
fication,  which  appears  to  me  truly  significant.  After  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  '  the  Colonies  fell,'  says  this  Assem 
bly,  '  into  their  ancient  state  of  unsuspecting  confidence  in  the 
mother  country.'  This  unsuspecting  confidence  is  the  true 
center  of  gravity  amongst  mankind,  about  which  all  the  parts 
are  at  rest.  It  is  this  unsuspecting  confidence  that  removes  all 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.        95 


difficulties,  and  reconciles  all  the  contradictions  which  occur 
in  the  complexity  of  all  ancient,  puzzled,  political  establish 
ments."  —  Burke's  Letter  to  the  Sheriff's  of  Bristol  (1777).  ' 

the  Noble  Lord  in  the  Blue  Ribbon :  Lord  North,  the 
only  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  who  was  then  a  Knight 
of  the  Garter,  and  was  therefore  entitled  to  wear  the  Blue 
Ribbon  of  that  order.  Notice  that  he  was  a  "  Lord  "  only  by 
courtesy;  his  father  (the  Earl  of  Guildford)  did  not  die  until 
1790;  until  that  date,  therefore,  "Lord"  North  was,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law,  a  commoner,  and  eligible  to  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Similarly,  in  our  own  time,  the  Marquis 
of  Hartington  has  been  for  many  years  a  distinguished  mem 
ber  of  the  House  of  Commons;  by  the  recent  death  of  his 
father  he  has  become  a  member  of  the  House  of  Peers  under 
the  title  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

The  project  referred  to  is  criticised  at  length  by  Burke  near 
the  close  of  this  speech  (see  pp.  77-85) ;  it  is  outlined  in  the 
following  Resolution  passed  by  the  House  on  Feb.  27,  1775:  — 

"That  when  the  Governor,  Council,  or  Assembly,  or  Gen 
eral  Court,  of  any  of  his  Majesty's  Provinces  or  Colonies  in 
America,  shall  propose  to  make  provision,  according  to  the 
condition,  circumstances,  and  situation,  of  such  Province  or 
Colony,  for  contributing  their  proportion  to  the  Common  De 
fence  (such  proportion  to  be  raised  under  the  Authority  of  the 
General  Court,  or  General  Assembly,  of  such  Province  or  Col 
ony,  and  disposable  by  Parliament),  and  shall  engage  to  make 
provision  also  for  the  support  of  the  Civil  Government,  and 
the  Administration  of  Justice,  in  such  Province  or  Colony,  it 
will  be  proper,  if  such  Proposal  shall  be  approved  by  his  Ma 
jesty,  and  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  for  so  long  as 
such  Provision  shall  be  made  accordingly,  to  forbear,  in  respect 
of  such  Province  or  Colony,  to  levy  any  duty,  Tax,  or  Assess 
ment,  or  to  impose  any  further  Duty,  Tax,  or  Assessment, 
except  such  duties  as  it  may  be  expedient  to  continue  to  levy 
or  impose,  for  the  Regulation  of  Commerce  ;  the  Nett  Produce 
of  the  Duties  last  mentioned  to  be  carried  to  the  account  of 
such  Province  or  Colony  respectively." 

mace.  The  crowned  club  or  scepter  which  lies  on  the  table 
of  the  House,  and  is  symbolical  of  its  authority.  If  debaters 
become  angry  or  personal,  the  speaker  directs  the  Sergeant-at- 


96 


NOTES    TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 


arms  to  advance  the  mace  between  the  disputants:  this  im 
plied  threat  of  discipline  generally  quiets  even  an  Irish 
member.  When  Cromwell  "  purged  "  the  House  of  Commons, 
he  is  reported  to  have  pointed  to  the  mace,  and  to  have  said: 
"  Take  away  that  bauble." 

our  Address.  An  address  to  the  King,  urging  him  to 
action  against  the  American  "rebels,"  had  recently  passed  the 
House. 

Bills  of  Pains  and  Penalties.    See  note  on  3 : 6. 

peace  with  honor.  This  phrase  has  become  famous  in 
recent  years,  from  its  employment  by  Disraeli  in  the  speech 
with  which  he  celebrated  his  triumphant  return  from  the 
Congress  of  Berlin  (1878).  "  I  bring  you  peace,"  said  he  to 
the  mob  of  Jingoes  who  howled  under  the  windows  of  the  For 
eign  Office;  "  I  bring  you  Peace;  and  Peace  with  Honor." 

that  time  and  those  chances.  Compare  Julius  Caesar, 
iv.  iii.  216-219 :  — 

There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men 
"Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries. 

the  number  of  people.  The  most  recent  authorities  put 
the  number  at  "about  2,600,000," —or  slightly  over  Burke's 
estimate.  Virginia  came  first,  with  560,000;  Massachusetts 
next,  with  360,000;  Georgia  last,  with  30,000.  the  cities  of 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  alone  contained  2,321,644  people  in 
1890;  to-day  they  probably  contain  a  larger  population  than  did 
the  whole  of  the  American  Colonies  120  years  ago.  Yet  one 
might  experience  some  trouble  to-day  in  finding  in  New  York 
and  Brooklyn  a  Franklin,  a  Washington,  a  Jefferson,  a  Ham 
ilton.  Herein  lies  food  for  thought. 

Notice  the  effective  use  of  antithesis  and  of  parallel  con 
structions  in  this  passage. 

the  front  of  our  deliberation.     Compare  Othello,  i.  iii. 

81-82:  — 

The  very  head  and  front  of  my  offending 
Hath  this  extent,  no  more. 

occasional  =  irregular,  fitful. 

those  minima.  Referring  to  the  proverb,  DP.  minimis  non 
curat  lex  (The  law  does  not  concern  itself  about  trifles);  i.e., 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH  THE  COLONIES.         97 


courts  of  justice  overlook  trifling  irregularities  in  a  law,  so 
long  as  these  irregularities  do  not  affect  the  public  interest. 

a  distinguished  person :  Richard  Glover  (1712-85),  mer 
chant,  politician,  and  versifier.  He  was  esteemed  a  poet  in 
his  day,  on  the  strength  of  a  dull  ballad  (Admiral  Hosier's 
Ghost)  and  two  long  and  dreary  epics,  Leonidas  and  The 
Athenaid  (in  thirty  books!).  The  former  was  published  in 
1737,  at  which  time  Swift  was  still  living;  Pope,  Bolingbroke, 
Thomson  and  Young  were  in  their  literary  prime;  Fielding, 
Richardson,  and  Johnson  had  begun  to  write.  Burke's  char 
acterization  of  him,  then,  as  "  one  of  the  first  literary  characters 
of  his  age,"  is  supremely  ridiculous,  even  as  an  oratorical  com 
pliment.  The  fact  is,  Glover  was  such  a  bad  poet  that  it  is 
a  wonder  he  escaped  being  appointed  Poet-Laureate.  The  only 
thing  that  saved  him  was  the  existence  of  Whitehead,  who, 
being  even  a  greater  adept  than  Glover  in  the  art  of  sinking  in 
poetry,  received  the  appointment  in  1757. 

Davenaiit.  Charles  Davenant  (1656-1714),  Member  of  Par 
liament,  Inspector  of  Plays,  and  Inspector-General  of  Exports 
and  Imports.  Macaulay  *  calls  him  "an  acute  and  well- 
informed,  though  most  unprincipled  and  and  rancorous  politi 
cian."  He  was  the  son  of  Sir  William  Davenant,  the  poet, 
who  claimed  to  be  the  godson  of  Shakespeare. 

the  African.    A  euphemism  for  the  slave-trade. 

six  millions.  For  the  year  1891  the  exports  of  Great 
Britain  to  the  United  States,  Canada,  the  West  Indies,  and 
Africa  amounted  to  £51,598,998;  of  this,  £27,544,553  went  to 
the  United  States. 

It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here.    Mark  ix.  5. 

Lord  Bathhurst.  Allen  Apsley  Bathhurst  was  born  in  1684, 
and  died  about  six  months  after  the  delivery  of  this  speech. 
He  was  made  Baron  in  1712,  and  Earl  in  1772.  Though  a  Tory 
politician  of  some  prominence,  he  found  time  to  cultivate  the 
friendship  of  such  men  as  Pope,  Swift,  Congreve,  and  Sterne. 
By  the  first  mentioned  he  was  held  in  especial  esteem :  to  him 
Pope  dedicated  that  famous  Epistle  on  the  Use  of  Riches,  which 

opens : 

Who  shall  decide,  when  doctors  disagree 
And  soundest  casuists  doubt,  like  you  and  me? 

1  History  of  England,  chapter  iii. 


98 


NOTES    TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 


Lines  219-228  contain  this  fine  compliment  to  Bathhurst :  — 

The  sense  to  value  riches,  with  the  art 

T'  enjoy  them,  and  the  virtue  to  impart, 

Not  meanly,  nor  ambitiously  pursu'd, 

Not  sunk  by  sloth,  nor  rais'd  by  servitude; 

To  balance  fortune  by  a  just  expense, 

Join  with  economy,  magnificence; 

With  splendor,  charity;  with  plenty,  health; 

O  teach  us,  Bathhurst!  yet  unspoiled  by  wealth! 

That  secret  rare  between  the  extremes  to  move 

Of  mad  good-nature  and  of  mean  self-love. 

acta  parentum.    Virgil,  Eel.  iv.  26-27:  — 

At  simul  heroum  laudes  et  facta  parentis 

Jam  legere  et  quae  sit  poteris  cognoscere  virtus, — 

"But  soon  as  thou  shalt  be  of  an  age  to  read  at  length  of  the 
glories  of  heroes  and  thy  father's  deeds,  and  to  acquaint  thyself  with 
the  nature  of  manly  worth,"  — 

in  the  fourth  generation  the  third  prince,  etc. 

George  I.,  1714-1727. 
George  II.,  1727-1760. 
[Frederic,  P.  of  Wales,  died  1751.] 
George  III.,  1760-1820. 

was  to  be  made  Great  Britain.  Scotland  had  wisely 
been  united  to  England  by  the  Long  Parliament  in  1652.  At 
the  Restoration  (1660)  Charles  II.  refused  to  recognize  this 
Union,  perceiving  that  by  so  doing  he  could  weaken  the  politi 
cal  influence  of  Puritanism.  After  long  and  bitter  opposition 
in  both  countries,  they  were  again  united  by  the  Treaty  of 
Union  in  1707.  The  united  valor  and  the  patriotism  of  the 
Scotch  had  practically  preserved  the  independence  of  their 
country  through  more  than  four  hundred  years;  when  they 
united  with  England,  then,  they  were  in  a  position  to  demand 
honorable  and  advantageous  terms-  Contrast  this  with  the 
case  of  Ireland,  where  the  lawlessness  and  petty  jealousies 
of  the  native  chiefs  invited  English  conquest.  Cromwell 
"united  "  Ireland  to  England  by  fire  and  sword;  Charles  II. 
dissolved  the  Union  ;  Pitt  reunited  her  in  1800  by  expending 
$5,000,000  in  bribes  to  Irish  "statesmen,"  and  by  distributing 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.        99 


places  and  pensions  galore.  To-day  the  Irish  question  seems 
as  far  from  settlement  as  ever,  while  Scotland  is  peaceful  and 
prosperous. 

his  son.  Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  Lord  Bathhurst,  was 
made  Lord  Chancellor  in  1771,  with  the  title  of  Baron  Apsley. 

before  you  taste  of  death.    Compare  Julius  Caesar,  u.  ii. 

32,33. 

Cowards  die  many  times  before  their  deaths; 
The  valiant  never  taste  of  death  but  once. 

For  the  Biblical  origin  of  the  phrase,  see  Matthew  xvi.  28; 
John  viii.  52. 

close  the  setting  of  his  day.  Possibly  an  echo  from 
Johnson's  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  311,  312  :  — 

But  few  there  are  whom  hours  like  these  await, 
Who  set  unclouded  in  the  gulfs  of  Fate. 

Mr.  E.  J.  Payne,  (an  English  authority)  tells  us  that  this 
fine  passage  concludes  "in  a  higher  strain  of  rhetoric  than  is 
now  permissible  in  Parliamentary  speaking."  This  suggests 
two  queries :  (1)  Have  you  now  a  Burke,  capable  of  originat 
ing  such  a  high  strain  ?  (2)  If  you  have,  and  if  parliamentary 
custom  does  not  permit  him  to  deliver  it,  is  not  your  Middle- 
class  Parliament  even  more  stupid  than  its  severest  critics 
declare  it  to  be  ? 

deceive  =  beguile,  alleviate,  lighten:  a  poetic  Latinism 
(fallo).  Compare  Virgil,  JEneid,  iv.  84,  85:  — 

Aut  gremio  Ascanium,  genitoris  imagine  capta, 
Detinet,  infandum  si  fallere  possit  amorem, — 

thus  translated  by  Dryden  :  — 

Or  in  her  bosom  young  Ascanius  bears, 
And  seeks  the  father's  image  in  the  child, 
If  love  by  likeness  might  be  so  beguiled. 

comprehending  =  including. 

a  Roman  charity.  The  story  here  referred  to  is  given  in 
different  versions  by  different  Latin  authors.  Hyginus  tells 
us  that  it  was  a  daughter  who  saved  her  imprisoned  father 
from  starvation  by  nourishing  him  from  her  own  breasts. 

whale  fishery.  Massachusetts  was  the  colony  chiefly 
interested  in  the  whale  fishery.  In  1758  she  had  304  vessels 
(tonnage,  28,000)  engaged  in  that  industry.  The  maximum 


100       NOTES    TO   SPEECH   OF  EDMUND   BUEKE 


18:    6 


18:  13 


was  reached  in  1854,  when  the  United  States  owned  668  whal 
ing  vessels  (tonnage  208,399).  Whales  have  now  become  so 
scarce,  and  other  substances  have  so  largely  superseded  whale- 
oil,  that  the  business  has  shrunk  to  insignificant  proportions. 

the  frozen  serpent.  There  is  a  constellation  lying  across 
the  Antarctic  Circle  called  the  Serpent.  Its  northernmost 
star  is  not  visible  until  you  reach  latitude  28°  North. 

Falkland.  Island  :  more  correctly  Falkland  Islands.  They 
were  discovered  in  1592,  and,  on  account  of  their  barrenness, 
were  not  considered  worth  colonizing  at  that  time.  Through 
the  growth  of  the  whale-fisheries  they  acquired  a  temporary 
importance  as  a  refitting  station. 

run  the  longitude.  This  expression  is  still  used  to-day, 
but  is  not  common.  Its  disuse  is  attributable  to  the  advance 
in  the  science  of  navigation  brought  about  by  improved  instru 
ments.  Literally  "run  the  longitude"  means  run  east  or 
west ;  practically  it  might  mean  any  direction  east  or  west  of 
north  or  south.  The  expression,  therefore,  may  be  properly 
used  to  indicate  any  direction  or  point  of  the  compass  lying 
south  of  east  or  west,  except  south  itself. 

A  similar  expression  is  used  in  connection  with  latitude: 
"  run  down  the  (or  your)  latitude,"  is  more  frequently  heard 
than  the  expression  Burke  uses.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  running 
down  the  latitude  is  to  this  day  practiced  to  some  extent  by 
masters  of  schooners  and  other  small  vessels  on  our  coasts, 
who  are  unskilled  in  the  mysteries  of  navigation,  their  knowl 
edge  of  the  subject  being  limited  to  "  dead  reckoning  "  and  the 
simple  problem  of  determining  the  latitude  from  the  observed 
altitude  of  the  sun  at  noon.  Thus,  having  "run  down  their 
latitude"  they  sail  east  or  west,  and  so,  in  time,  arrive  at 
their  port  of  destination  in  a  sort  of  instinctive  way  bred  of 
their  practical  knowledge  of  the  sea.1 

No  sea  but  what  is  vexed.  Compare  Paradise  Lost,  i. 
305-307 : — 

.  .  .  when  with  fierce  winds  Orion  armed 

Hath  vexed  the  Red  Sea  coast,  whose  waves  o'erthrew 

Busiris  and  his  Memphi.in  chivalry. 

1  For  the  substance  of  this  note  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of 
Captain  C.  S.  Cotton  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Philadelphia. 


ON   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      101 


No    climate,   etc.     Evidently   suggested    by  ^Eneid,    i. 

459,460:  — 

Quis  jam  locus,  inquit,  Achute, 
Quae  regio  in  terris  nostri  noil  plena  laboris  ? 

" '  Is  there,  friend,'  he  cries,  'a  spot 

That  knows  not  Troy's  unhappy  lot  ?  '" 

I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of  liberty.  The  fine 
passage  closed  by  this  sentence  has  all  the  essentials  of  poetry 
except  versification.  For  the  sentiment,  compare  the  closing 
lines  of  Mill's  "  Essay  on  Liberty." 

complexions  =  temperament,  disposition.  This  is  the  ori 
ginal  meaning  of  the  word.  Compare  Hamlet,  I.  iv.  27,  28:  — 

By  the  o'ergrowth  of  some  complexion 

Oft  breaking  down  the  pales  and  forts  of  reason. 

Terror  is  not  always  the  effect  of  force ;  and  an  ar 
mament  is  not  a  victory.  Burke  is  terribly  long-winded  at 
times,  yet  when  he  chooses  he  can  be  (as  here)  as  finely  sen 
tentious  as  Tacitus.  Compare  the  Agricola,  chapter  30:  — 
"  ubi  solitvdinem  faciunt,  pacem  appellant." 

when  this  part  of  your  character  was  most  promi 
nent.  Plymouth  Colony  was  founded  in  1(520;  Massachusetts 
Bay  in  1628;  Connecticut  between  1630  and  1639;  and  there 
was  a  steady  immigration  to  them  so  long  as  the  tyranny  of 
Charles  I.  and  Laud  endured.  When  the  Puritans  gained 
control  of  the  government  of  England,  this  immigration  fell 
off  materially. 

Abstract  liberty  ...  is  not  to  be  found.  .Liberty 
inheres  in  some  sensible  object.  If  all  political  orators  had 
but  taken  to  heart  this  maxim,  what  oceans  of  frothy  decla 
mation  we  should  have  been  spared!  In  spite  of  all  the 
theorizing  about  Liberty,  Liberty  is  a  very  simple  thing:  it  is 
the  right  to  live  your  own  life  in  your  own  way,  subject  only 
to  the  condition  that  your  actions  be  not  harmful  to  others. 

contests  in  the  ancient  commonwealths.  Consult  a 
History  of  Kome  under  the  years  496-494,  451,  443,  367  B.C. 

ablest  pens  :  Selden,  Swift,  Bolingbroke.  most  eloquent 
tongues:  Pym,  Hampden,  Vane.  The  last  mentioned  was 
executed  after  the  Restoration. 

imagination  =  opinion. 


102 


NOTES    TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 


popular  =  of  the  people  (populus),  democratic. 

dissenting  churches.  The  Church  of  England  people 
call  all  Protestant  sects  except  their  own  Dissenters  (from  the 
established  church). 

under  the  nursing  care,  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI., 
and  Elizabeth. 

the  dissidence  of  dissent,  etc. 

"Nowhere  has  Puritanism  found  so  adequate  an  expression  as  in 
the  religious  organization  of  the  Independents.  The  modern  Inde 
pendents  have  a  newspaper,  The  Nonconformist,  written  with  great 
sincerity  and  ability.  The  rnotto,  the  standard,  the  profession  of 
faith,  which  this  organ  of  theirs  carries  aloft  is  :  '  The  Dissidence  of 
Dissent  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion.'  There  is 
sweetness  and  light,  and  an  ideal  of  complete  harmonious  human 
perfection !  One  need  not  go  to  culture  and  poetry  to  find  language 
to  judge  it.  Religion,  with  its  instinct  for  perfection,  supplies  lan 
guage  to  judge  it,  language,  too,  which  is  in  our  mouths  every  day. 
'  Finally,  be  of  one  mind,  united  in  feeling,'  says  St.  Peter.  There 
is  an  ideal  which  judges  the  Puritan  ideal :  '  The  Dissidence  of  Dis 
sent  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion ! '"  —  MATTHEW 
ARNOLD,  Culture  and  Anarchy,  chapter  i. 

people  of  the  Southern  Colonies.  For  an  incomparable 
picture  of  18th  century  life  in  Colonial  Virginia,  see  Thackeray's 
Virginians,  chapters  iii.-xiii. 

Gothic;  incorrectly  used  for  Teutonic.  But  this  is  not  as 
bad  as  Shelley,  who  speaks  of  the  Austrians  as  Kelts  (Euganean 
Hills,  223). 

the  Poles.  Poland  was  first  partitioned  (i.e.,  enslaved)  by 
the  three  robbers,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia,  in  1772. 

Plantations  =  colonies.  The  official  name  of  Rhode 
Island,  according  to  the  charter  of  1663,  was  Rhode  Island 
and  Providence  Plantations. 

successful  chicane.  When  General  Gage  prohibited  the 
calling  of  a  town-meeting  in  Boston,  the  colonial  leaders  de 
clared  each  successive  meeting  merely  adjourned,  and  so 
bestowed  upon  it  legal  immortality.  Gage  was  actually  stu 
pid  and  weak  enough  to  let  this  flimsy  obstacle  delay  his 
action.  For  the  particulars,  see  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams, 
chapter  xix. 

my  honorable  and  learned  friend:  Edward  Thurlow, 
at  this  time  Attorney-General ;  in  1778  created  Lord  Chan 
cellor.  He  was  a  man  of  some  ability,  who  managed  to  get  on 


ON  CONCILIATION    WITH  TUE  COLONIES.      103 


the  wrong  side  of  almost  every  public  question  he  touched. 
He  opposed  the  Americans,  defended  Warren  Hastings,  and 
supported  the  slave-trade  —  all  with  equal  violence.  Much  of 
his  success  in  life  was  due  to  his  conscientious  adherence  to 
the  (Thackerayan)  maxim  that  if  you  want  comfortable  stand 
ing  grotind,  stamp  on  your  neighbor's  toe.  Do  you  think  he 
won't  pull  it  out  of  the  way? 

Abeunt  stadia  in  mores :  "  Pursuits  pass  into  charac 
ter:"  from  Ovid,  Heroides,  xv.  83. 

in  weakening  government.    For  illustration,  notice  the 
case  of  Governor  Andros,  who  was  deposed  by  the  New  Eng- 
landers  and  deported  by  them  to  England  in  1689. 
winged  ministers  of  vengeance. 

Qualem  ministrum  fulminis  alitem, 

Cui  rex  deorum  regimm  in  aves  vagas 

Permisit  —  HO'RACK,  Carm.  iv.  4,  1-3. 

"  Like  as  the  thunder-bearing  bird 

On  whom  o'er  all  the  fowls  of  air 
Dominion  was  by  Jove  conferred  "  — 

pounces  =  claws,  talons. 

So  far  shalt  thou  go,  etc.  Read  Thackeray's  fine  ballad 
of  King  Canute.  The  origin  of  the  phrase  is  evidently  in  the 
eleventh  verse  of  that  magnificent  lyric,  the  thirty-eighth 
chapter  of  Job. 

Nothing  worse  happens,  etc.  Notice  how  this  abstract 
statement  is  vivified  by  the  concrete  illustrations  that  follow. 

"  No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  my  account 
With  all  my  imperfections  on  my  head.  —  Hamlet,  i.  v.  78,  79. 

Lord  Dunmore  :  the  last  royal  Governor  of  Virginia, 
appointed  in  1771.  His  arbitrary  measures  made  him  ex 
tremely  unpopular.  After  Lexington,  he  fled  from  the  colony, 
and  established  himself  on  board  the  English  fleet,  which, 
under  his  direction,  harried  the  coast  for  more  than  a  year. 
After  the  war  he  was  appointed  Governor  of  the  Bermudas. 

Patriotism  must  have  been  almost  dead  in  England  when 
such  a  convincing  historical  argument  as  this  could  fall  upon 
deaf  ears. 

They  have  already  so  occupied  :  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Massachusetts  immigrants  who  founded  the  Connecticut  towns 
of  Weathersfield  (1634),  Windsor  (1635),  and  Hartford  (1636). 


104        NOTES    TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND   BURKE 


a  square  of  five  hundred  miles ;  the  western  boundary 
being  the  Mississippi.  Thence  the  Spaniards  claimed  to  the 
Pacific. 

the  command  .  .  .  of  Providence.    Genesis  ix.  1. 

given  to  the  children  of  men.    Psalms  cxv.  16. 

Spoliatis  arma  s'upersunt.  "  To  the  plundered  remain 
arms.  —  Juvenal,  viii.  12-4. 

your  speech  would  betray  you.    Matthew  xxvi.  73. 

dragooning  :  persecution  by  means  of  armed  force  (dra 
goons). 

burn  their  books  of  curious  science.    Acts  xix.  19. 

more  chargeable  =  more  expensive. 

difficult  to  be  kept  in  obedience.  The  Long  Parliament 
created  the  Cromwellian  army,  and  the  army  abolished  the 
Parliament. 

History  furnishes  few  instances,  etc.  One  of  the  most 
admirable  things  about  Burke  is  his  constant  reference  to  the 
teachings  of  history.  Of  no  subject  are  the  American  people 
more  ignorant  than  of  this  ;  when  we  look  at  our  national 
legislation  for  the  last  thirty-five  years,  it  seems  as  if  our  pub 
lic  men  had  learned  almost  nothing  from  twenty-five  hundred 
years  of  European  experiences. 

other  people :  the  Spartans  under  Cleomenes  III.  (third 
century  B.C.)  ;  the  Romans  after  Cannae  (216  B.C.).  This  does 
not  exhaust  the  instances. 

their  refusal.  "  [In  1769,  the  Virginia  House  of  Bur 
gesses]  unanimously  adopted  an  agreement  drawn  by  George 
Mason  and  presented  by  George  "Washington,  not  to  import  or 
purchase  any  English  commodities,  or  any  slaves,  until  their 
rights  were  redressed." — John  Esten  Cooke's  Virginia,  in. 
vi.  (p.  401,  edition  of  1885). 

It  would  be  curious,  etc.  The  English  have  seldom 
cared  about  moral  consistency  when  there  was  a  shilling  to  be 
made  by  disregarding  it.  Witness  the  iniquitous  opium  war  of 
1842,  when  that  deadly  drug  was  forced  upon  the  protesting 
Chinese,  at  the  cannon's  mouth,  by  a  nation  whose  state  reli 
gion  is  Christianity. 

Ye  gods,  etc.  There  is  a  tradition  that  this  is  from  one  of 
Dryden's  plays;  and  it  certainly  sounds  like  Maximim  in  Ty- 
ranic  Love,  or  like  Antony  in  All  for  Love;  but  diligent 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      105 


search  fails  to  reveal  it  in  either  of  these  places.  It  is  quoted 
in  The  'Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry,  chapter  xi.,  as  a  burlesque 
example  of  "  The  Hyperbole  or  The  Impossible."  See  Court- 
hope  and  El  win's  Pope,  vol.  x.,  p.  381. 

alterative  =  having  power  to  restore  healthy  functions:  a 
medical  term,  used  here  with  admirable  precision. 

Sir  Edward  Coke,  Attorney-General  from  1594  to  IGlfi. 
He  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  legal  bully.  We  have  the  fol 
lowing  record1  of  his  behavior  at  Raleigh's  trial  (1603). 
"  Coke  :  '  I  will  prove  you  the  notoriest  traitor  that  ever  came 
to  the  bar.'  Raleigh:  '  Your  words  cannot  condemn  me  ;  my 
innocency  is  my  defence.'  Coke :  '  Thou  art  a  monster.  Thou 
hast  an  English  face,  but  a  Spanish  heart.'  " 

empire.  The  flourishing  condition  of  the  British  Empire 
to-day  shows  that  her  statesmen  have  at  last  learned  the  lesson 
Burke  here  so  finely  teaches. 

ex  vi  termini :  from  the  very  force  of  the  term. 

ban  =  sentence  of  outlawry.  Originally  the  ban  was  merely 
an  edict  or  proclamation  summoning  to  arms. 

addressed  =  presented  an  address  to  the  King.  See  note 
on  3 :  10. 

correctly  right  is  certainly  a  curious  tautology. 

startle,  here  used  intransitively.     Compare  Ben   Jonson, 

Alchemist,  iv.  i.  23-26. 

Physic  or  mathematics, 
Poetry,  state  ...  as  I  told  you 
She  will  endure  and  never  startle;  but 
No  word  of  controversy. 

The  quotation  is  from  Paradise  Lost,  ii.  592-5M.  It  is 
more  than  doubtful  if  the  Tory  squires  who  listened  to  Burke 
understood  the  quotation,  or  appreciated  the  delightful  irony 
that  precedes  it. 

a  revenue  act.    The  Stamp  Act ;  repealed  in  1766. 

American  financiers:  not  "financiers  that  are  Ameri 
cans,"  but  "  financiers  who  think  America  could  be  made  to 
yield  us  a  revenue  by  taxation." 

a  gentleman  of  real  moderation.  A  Mr.  Rice — to 
fame  and  biographical  dictionaries  unknown. 

shall,  here  implies  not  futurity,  but  almost  duty  or  obliga- 

1  In  Howell's  State  Trials,  vol.  ii. 


106       NOTES   TO   SPEECH  ON  EDMUND  BURKE 


tion:  very  common  in  this  sense  in  Middle  English.  Compare 
the  German  Sollen. 

the  Acts  of  Navigation.  The  original  Navigation  Act 
was  passed  in  1G51,  and  was  part  of  the  English  war-policy 
against  the  Dutch.  It  prohibited  foreign  vessels  from  bring 
ing  to  England  any  products  save  those  of  the  countries  to 
which  they  belonged.  In  1672  the  law  was  made  more  strin 
gent  ;  importations  from  Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  were  en 
tirely  prohibited  unless  brought  in  English  ships.  When  the 
American  colonies  achieved  independence,  they  passed  retali 
atory  laws:  we  then  beheld  the  edifying  spectacle  of  the  ships 
of  each  nation  making  half  the  round  trip  empty,  and  the  con 
sumers  at  each  end  paying  double  freight.  This  attempt  of 
two  nations  to  grow  rich  by  plundering  each  other  flourished 
until  1814,  when  it  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  Treaty  of 
Ghent.  It  revived,  in  modified  form,  in  the  absurd  Shipping 
Laws  of  our  Reconstruction  period. 

the  pamphlet:  probably  the  "  Four  Tracts,  together  with 
Two  Sermons  on  Political  and  Commercial  Subjects,"  by 
Josiah  Tucker,  Dean  of  Gloucester.  The  writer's  views  remind 
one  of  Captain  Lismahago's  unanswerable  argument  as  to  the 
benefits  England  had  received  from  her  union  with  Scotland. 
The  good  dean  wished  England  to  throw  away  her  American 
Colonies  as  of  no  value,  nor  would  he  have  her  take  them  back 
until  they  humbly  petitioned  for  the  inestimable  privilege  of 
subjection  to  the  mother-country. 

Philip  the  Second  (1555-1598)  married  Queen  Mary  of 
England.  During  the  early  part  of  his  reign  Spain  was  the 
first  country  in  Europe. 

Ireland.    See  note  on  15 :  7. 

Magna  Charta.  Consult  Green's  Short  History  of  the 
English  People,  chapter  iii.,  sections  ii.,  iii. 

Sir  John  Davis,  or  more  correctly  Davies  (1569-1626) : 
rake,  wit,  poet,  and  lawyer  ;  author  of  Discoverie  of  the  True 
Causes  why  Ireland  Was  Never  Entirely  Subdued  until  the 
Beginning  of  His  Majesty's  Happy  Reign  (1612).  He  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  Ireland,  having  resided  there 
from  1603  to  1616,  and  having  filled  there  the  offices  of  solici 
tor-general,  attorney-general,  and  speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons. 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH   THE  COLONIES.      107 


the  Revolution,  of  1688,  when  Parliament  deposed  James 
II.,  and  (practically)  elected  William  of  Orange  king. 

great  and  flourishing  kingdom.  Burke  draws  largely 
upon  his  imagination  here.  For  a  true  description  of  Irish 
society  iu  1771,  see  Thackeray's  Barry  Lyndon,  chapter  xiv. 
Ireland  is  to-day  a  disgrace  and  burthen  intolerable  to 
England,  just  as  the  negro  prohlem  is  to  us;  if  she  has  never 
been  formally  taxed,  she  has  been  informally  taxed,  by 
rack-renting,  even  below  the  limit  of  subsistence. 

Henry  the  Third:  1216-1272  ;  Edward  the  First :  1272- 
1307. 

lords  marchers.  See  the  Introduction  and  the  first  chap 
ter  of  Scott's  The  Betrothed ;  also,  Green's  History,  chapter 
iv.,  section  i. 

secondary  (noun)  =  deputy.  This  use  of  the  word  is  rare 
now,  except  as  applied  to  a  minor  officer  of  a  cathedral.  See 

Measure  for  Measure,  i.  i.  47,  48. 

—  old  Escalus, 
Though  first  in  question,  is  thy  secondary. 

rid  :  old  preterite  for  rode. 

the  twenty-seventh  year  of  Henry  the  Eighth:  i.e.,  in 
1535. 

day-star  .  .  .  had  arisen :  2  Peter  i.  19. 

The  quotation  is  from  Horace's  Odes,  i.  12,  27-32.  He  is 
speaking  of  Castor  and  Pollux :  — 

—  "  soon  as  gleam 

Their  stars  at  sea, 
The  lashed  spray  trickles  from  the  steep, 

The  wind  sinks  down,  the  storm-cloud  flies, 
The  threatening  billow  on  the  deep 

Obedient  lies." 

shewen.  Shew  is  an  older  spelling  than  show.  The  ter 
mination  is  the  old  form  of  the  plural ;  very  common  as  late  as 
Chaucer,  and  revived  as  a  poetic  archaism  by  Spenser  and 
Thomson. 

Palatine  =  having  royal  or  imperial  privileges.  There 
were  only  three  Counties  Palatine  in  England:  Lancaster, 
Chester,  and  Durham.  Their  lords  exercised  within  these 
realms  the  same  judicial  powers  as  did  the  king.  The  ety 
mology  of  Palatine  is  worth  tracing. 


108       NOTES   TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BUEKE 


disherisons  =  disinheritings. 

ne  =  nor. 

bounden:  old  form  of  the  past  participle;  almost  obsolete 
now,  except  in  the  phrase  bounden  duty. 

pale  (Latin  pains,  a  stake)  =  fence,  limit,  bound  ;  then  the 
region  inclosed  by  bounds.  The  English  Pale  in  Ireland  was 
the  strip  on  the  south  and  east  coasts,  where  English  arms  and 
law  prevailed. 

Judge  Barrington :  Daines  Barrington  (1727-1800) ;  lawyer, 
naturalist,  and  antiquarian.  In  1757  he  was  made  a  justice  for 
the  counties  of  Anglesey,  Caernarvon,  and  Merioneth.  That  he 
never  rose  higher  in  the  law  was  due,  not  to  lack  of  ability, 
but  to  his  literary  tastes.  Bentham  says  that  he  had  a  "  higher 
intellect "  than  Blackstone.  Charles  Lamb  (Essay  on  the  Old 
Benchers)  says  he  attained  to  considerable  dignity  "  upon  the 
strength  of  being  a  tolerable  antiquarian,  and  having  a  brother 
a  bishop." 

Wales  was  hardly  ever  free  from  it.  The  last  rising  of 
the  Welsh  (1400-1410)  was  under  Owen  Glendower.  See  his 
character  in  Shakespeare's  1  Henry  IV.  Read  also  Gray's 
Bard. 

The  quotation  (from  Juvenal  x.,  152)  is  about  as  inappro 
priate  as  can  be  imagined.  Juvenal  is  speaking  of  Hannibal, 
and  tells  us  how  successfully  he  removed  the  barriers  which 
Nature  opposed  to  his  progress:  Burke  wishes  to  impress  upon 
his  hearers  the  fact  that  Nature  opposes  them  with  an  abso 
lutely  irremovable  barrier. 

the  arm  ...  is  not  shortened.    Isaiah  lix.  1. 

Plato;  More;  Harrington.  Students  who  have  time  to 
consult  these  classics  will  find  them  published  at  trifling  cost 
in  the  following  editions:  the  Republic  in  the  Golden  Treasury 
Series  (Macmillan) ;  the  Utopia  in  No.  23,  and  the  Oceana  in 
No.  53  of  Morley's  Universal  Library  (Routledge). 

The  (inaccurate)  quotation  is  from  Comus,  G34-G35:  — 

and  the  dull  swain 

Treads  on  it  daily  with  his  clouted  shoon  ;  — 

irresistible  conclusions.  If  Burke  was  ever  blinded  by 
the  popular  fallacy  about  the  irresistible  power  of  Truth, 
the  vote  against  his  Resolutions  (270-78)  must  have  opened 
his  eyes.  On  this  subject  Mill  has  written  wise  words  (Essay 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.       109 


on  Liberty,  chapter  ii.  H  17).  "Men  are  not  more  zealous  for 
truth  than  they  often  are  for  error,  and  a  sufficient  application 
of  legal,  or  even  of  social,  penalties,  will  generally  succeed  in 
stopping  the  propagation  of  either.  The  real  advantage  which 
truth  has  consists  in  this,  that  when  an  opinion  is  true,  it  may 
be  extinguished  once,  twice,  or  many  times,  but,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  there  will  generally  be  found  persons  to  rediscover 
it,  until  some  one  of  its  reappearances  falls  on  a  time  when, 
from  favorable  circumstances,  it  escapes  persecution  until  it 
has  made  such  head  as  to  withstand  all  subsequent  attempts 
to  suppress  it." 

The  quotation  is  from  Horace,  Lib.  ii.  Sat.  ii.  2,  3. 
"  What  the  virtue  consists  in,  and  why  it  is  great, 
To  live  on  a  little,  whatever  your  state 
('Tis  not  I  who  discourse,  but  Ofellus  the  hind, 
Though  no  scholar,  a  sage  of  exceptional  kind)"  — 

rust  that  .  .  .  adorns  is  an  image  that  can  with  difficulty 
be  admired  by  a  reader  with  a  sense  of  humor;  and  rust  that 
preserves,  though  a  chemical  possibility,  is  certainly  rare. 

touch  with  a  tool.    Exodus  xx.  25. 

wise  beyond  what  was  written.     1  Corinthians  iv.  6. 

the  form  of  sound  words.    2  Timothy  i.  13. 

Lord  Hillsborough  :  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies 
from  17G8  to  1772.  He  was  a  bitter  opponent  of  the  conciliation 
policy;  as  late  as  November,  1781,  he  expressed  the  hope  that 
"the  independence  of  America  would  never  be  admitted." 
Even  George  III.  (temporarily  forgetting  his  own  existence) 
declared  he  did  not  know  a  man  "  of  less  judgment  than  Lord 
Hil  Isborough . ' ' 

wished  =  recommended :  so  used  by  Shakespeare  and  Ben 
Jonson.  See  Century  Dictionary  for  illustrative  quotations. 

the  Council.  A  well-condensed  description  of  the  Privy 
Council  will  be  found  in  the  Century  Dictionary,  article 
Council  (9). 

the  misguided  people  =  the  common  people  of  England. 
At  this  time  the  prospect  of  war  was  undoubtedly  popular  there. 

Mr.  Grenville,  George  Grenville,  brother-in-law  of  Pitt, 
originator  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  Prime  Minister  from  17(i3  to 
1765.  See  his  character  sketched  by  Macaulay  in  the  second 
Essay  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham. 


110       NOTES   TO  SPEECH  OF  EDMUNti  BURKE 


state  =  statement. 

Courts  of  Admiralty  :  Courts  that  have  exclusive  juris 
diction  over  maritime  causes.  In  the  United  States,  only 
Federal  Courts  are  allowed  to  exercise  this  jurisdiction. 

the  immediate  jewel,  etc.     From  Othello,  in.  iii.  156: 

[Good  name,  in  man  and  woman,  dear  my  lord] 
Is  the  immediate  jewel  of  their  souls. 

a  great  house,  etc.    An  echo  from  Juvenal,  v.  67. 
Maxima  quaeque  domus  servis  est  plena  superbis. 

cords  of  man.    Hosea  xi.  4. 

Aristotle  .  .  .  cautions  us ;  in  the  Nichomachean  Eth 
ics,  Book  I.  chapter  iii. 

"  In  matters  so  little  stable  [as  those  of  politics  and  ethics] 
we  must  be  contented,  therefore,  with  catching  the  general 
resemblance  of  truth ;  and  our  conclusions  will  deserve  to  be 
approved,  if  in  most  cases  they  are  found  to  hold  true ;  for  it  is 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  be  satisfied  in  each  subject  with  that 
kind  of  evidence  which  the  nature  of  the  subject  allows;  it 
not  being  less  absurd  to  require  demonstrations  of  an  orator 
than  to  be  contented  with  probabilities  from  a  mathemati 
cian." 

Ireland  has  ever  had,  etc.  See  note  on  15:  7  and  51: 15. 
Sweet  and  harmonious  hardly  describe  the  relations  between 
England  and  Ireland  to-day. 

the  Noble  Lord  :  Lord  North. 

that  proposition.  See  second  paragraph  of  the  note  on 
7:8. 

Experimentum  in  corpore  vili.  "  'Tis  well  to  try  your 
experiment  on  a  subject  that  is  worthless." 

back  door  of  the  Constitution;  i.e.,  some  committee. 
In  our  system  of  Congressional  government,  these  back-doors 
have  become  so  numerous  and  so  much  used,  that  the  main- 
door  (public  and  intelligent  discussion)  is  left  to  rust  upon  its 
hinges. 

the  tobacco  of  Virginia.  "  There  has  never  been  a  com 
munity,  probably,  in  which  any  one  great  staple  has  played 
such  a  part  as  in  Virginia,  Tobacco  founded  the  colony  and 
gave  it  wealth.  It  was  the  currency  of  Virginia;  as  bad  a  one 


ON   CONCILIATION    WITH   THE  COLONIES.      Ill 


as  could  J»e  devised,  and  fluctuating  with  every  crop ;  yet  it 
retained  its  place  as  circulating  medium  despite  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  to  introduce  specie.  The  clergy  were  paid 
and  taxes  were  levied  by  the  Burgesses  in  tobacco.  The 
whole  prosperity  of  the  colony  rested  upon  it  for  more  than 
a  century,  and  it  was  not  until  the  period  of  the  Revolution 
that  other  crops  began  to  come  in  and  replace  it.  The  fluctua 
tions  in  tobacco  caused  the  first  conflict  with  England,  brought 
on  by  the  violence  of  the  clergy,  and  paved  the  way  for  re 
sistance.  In  tobacco  the  Virginian  estimated  his  income  and 
the  value  of  everything  he  possessed  ;  and  in  its  various  func 
tions,  as  well  as  in  its  method  of  cultivation,  it  had  a  strong 
effect  upon  the  character  of  the  people.  ...  It  was,  too, 
always  a  sore  subject  with  England ;  and  the  '  case  of  the 
Planters  of  Tobacco,'  in  1733,  presents  a  sad  picture  of  the 
losses  inflicted  by  the  mother  country  by  extortionate  duties, 
and,  what  was  much  worse,  by  fraud,  corruption,  clipping, 
and  favoritism  of  all  sorts  in  the  custom-house.  .  .  .  Just  be 
fore  the  Revolution  the  exportation  of  tobacco,  including  a 
small  quantity  from  North  Carolina,  had  risen  from  sixty  thou 
sand  in  1759,  to  one  hundred  thousand  hogsheads,  was  worth 
nearly  a  million  pounds  sterling,  and  employed  about  three 
hundred  vessels."  —  LODGE  ;  Short  History  of  the  English 
Colonies  in  America,  cbapter  ii.,  pp.  64,  65. 

Virginia  and  Maryland.  See  note  on  9  :  23.  Maryland 
at  this  time  was  only  fifth  in  population  (220,000):  the  extent 
of  her  navigable  waters,  as  well  as  her  central  position,  gave 
her  importance. 

a  Treasury  Extent :  a  remedy  for  recovering  debts  due 
the  Crown,  under  which  the  body,  goods,  and  land  of  the 
debtor  may  be  summarily  seized. 

the  empire  of  Germany  :  not  the  modern  Empire  of 
Germany,  which  dates  only  from  1871,  but  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  —  a  congeries  of  states  under  the  leadership  of  Aus 
tria,  which  Napoleon  dissolved  when  he  formed  the  Confeder 
ation  of  the  Rhine  in  1806. 

Posita  luditur  area.  From  Juvenal's  First  Satire,  lines 
89,90. 

—  Neque  enim  loculis  comitantibus  itur 
Ad  casum  tabulae  posita  sed  luditur  area. 


112       NOTES    TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 


"  For  now-a-days  men  do  not  go  to  the  gambling-teable  with 
what  they  happen  to  have  in  purse,  but  they  stake  their  very 
treasure-chest."  Burke's  quotations  from  Juvenal  show  a 
better  remembrance  of  the  words  than  of  the  thought.  See 
note  on  58 :  5. 

one  hundred  and  forty  millions.  The  national  debt 
had  nearly  doubled  within  twenty-five  years.  The  senseless 
war  with  the  colonies  added  to  this  £133,000,000. 

And  what  is  the  soil,  etc.  Notice  how  admirably  the 
metaphor  is  carried  out;  how  it  is  exhausted,  yet  not  tor 
tured.  There  is  no  "  restless  pursuit  of  comparison,  ...  we 
see  great  accuracy  in  depicting  the  things  themselves  or  their 
suggestions,  so  that  we  may  be  certain  the  things  presented 
themselves  in  the  field  of  the  poet's  vision  and  were  painted 
because  seen."  — G.  H.  LEWES:  Principles  of  Success  in  Lit 
erature,  in.,  ii.  5. 

parties  must  ever  exist  in  a  free  country.  Must  they  ? 
Is  this  an  immutable  principle  of  human  nature  ?  Notice  the 
metaphor  from  gambling  with  which  Burke  props  this  assump 
tion;  he  is  down  to  the  level  of  ex-Senator  Ingalls  when  he 
declared  that  government  is  warfare.  —  "The  persistence  of 
parties,  under  our  present  conditions,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  citizen  exhausts  all  his  political  power  for  a  fixed  period 
in  a  single  act,  and  that  act  the  election  of  some  man  or  men 
to  office.  There  may  be  a  dozen  principles  which  he  would 
like  to  see  embodied  in  legislation,  but  he  can  neither  vote 
for  each  of  them  directly  nor  for  a  different  man  for  each  prin 
ciple.  The  best  he  can  do  is  to  vote  for  a  candidate  whose 
views,  on  the  whole,  are  most  nearly  in  accordance  with  his 
own,  and  resign  himself  to  being  misrepresented  on  the  points 
upon  which  he  and  his  candidate  differ.  From  this  has  arisen 
the  habit  of  picking  out  what  seem  to  be  for  the  moment  the 
most  important  subjects  in  dispute,  making  them  the  issues  on 
which  candidates  contest  for  election,  and  ignoring  less  press 
ing  matters.  This  at  once  divides  the  community  into  parties, 
having  the  nominal  ultimate  purpose  of  carrying  out  their 
characteristic  principles,  and  the  actual  immediate  purpose  of 
getting  their  candidates  into  office.  .  .  . 

"As  party  government  has  naturally  grown  out  of  present 
conditions,  so  it  would  naturally  disappear  if  the  conditions 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH  THE  COLONIES.      113 


were  changed.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  man  who  believes 
in  free  trade,  the  single  gold  standard,  and  the  Government 
ownership  of  railroads,  should  seek  all  those  objects  through 
one  political  organization,  except  that  under  our  present 
methods  he  has  only  one  vote,  and  must  cast  it  for  the  candi 
date  of  one  political  organization  or  lose  it.  If  he  could  vote 
on  each  important  measure  separately,  he  would  probably  be 
long  to  one  association,  or  party,  devoted  to  the  propagation 
of  the  free-trade  idea,  to  another  working  for  the  gold  stand 
ard,  and  to  another  engaged  in  agitating  for  the  nationaliza 
tion  of  railroads.  He  would  no  more  expect  always  to  associate 
with  the  same  men  in  political  matters  than  in  social,  reli 
gious,  and  business  matters."  —  MOFFETT:  Suggestions  on  Gov 
ernment,  chapter  vi. 

Ease  would  retract.    See  Paradise  Lost,  iv.  96,  97:  — 

Ease  would  recant 
Vows  made  in  pain,  as  violent  and  void  — 

Burke  might  appropriately  have  finished  the  quotation:  — 
(For  never  can  true  reconcilement  grow 
Where  wounds  of  deadly  hate  have  pierced  so  deep) . 

speed  =  prosper,  as  in  Pope's  translation  of  Odyssey,  xv. 

69-71 : - 

True  friendship's  laws  are  by  this  rule  express'd  : 
Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest. 

the  East  India  Company.  Founded  as  a  trading  corpo 
ration  in  1600,  this  company,  through  its  officers,  Clive  and 
Hastings,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  British  Empire  in  India.  Its  royal  powers  were  not  re 
sumed  by  the  Crown  until  1858. 

the  enemies:  Spain,  who  claimed  from  the  Mississippi  to 
the  Pacific,  and  France,  who  had  many  possessions  in  the  West 
Indies.  See  34 :  7  and  Note. 

ties  .  .  .  light  as  air.    Perhaps  suggested  by 

Trifles  light  as  air 

Are  to  the  jealous  confirmations  strong 
As  proofs  of  holy  writ. 

Othello,  in.  iii.  322-321. 

chosen  race  .  .  .  turn  their  faces.  There  are  faint 
echoes  of  Biblical  phraseology  here.  See  1  Kings  viii.  44,  45 ; 
Daniel  vi.  10. 


114       NOTES   TO   SPEECH  OF  EDMUND  BURKE 


Spain,  then  under  an  excellent  ruler  (Charles  III.),  com 
pares  favorably  with  England  under  Lord  North ;  Prussia, 
under  the  tyranny  of  Frederick  called  the  Great,  was  certainly 
a  pure  despotism.  See  Thackeray's  Barry  Lyndon,  chapters 
v.,  vi. 

registers,  bonds,  etc.  Custom-house  terms.  A  suffer 
ance  is  a  permit  to  ship  goods.  Cocket  means,  (1)  the  little 
boat  in  which  goods  are  transported  from  ship  to  custom 
house;  (2)  the  seal  of  the  custom-house;  (3)  a  certificate  of 
entry  stamped  with  this  seal. 

the  spirit  .  .  .  infused  through  the  mighty  mass. 
The  phraseology  is  an  echo  from  that  employed  by  Virgil  in 
his  exposition  of  the  pantheistic  philosophy. 

Know  first  that  heaven  and  earth's  compacted  frame, 
And  flowing  waters  and  the  starry  flame, 
And  both  the  radiant  lights,  one  common  soul 
'   Inspires  and  feeds  and  animates  the  whole. 
This  active  mind  infused  through  all  the  space, 
Unites  and  mingles  with  the  mighty  mass;  — 

JEmid,  vi.  725-728.    (Dryden's  Translation.) 

Mutiny  Bill.  The  annual  bill  that  grants  money  for  the 
support  of  the  standing  army  ;  so  called  because  the  first  bill 
of  this  kind  was  passed  to  suppress  a  mutiny  (of  Scotch  troops 
at  Ipswich  in  1689).  "To  this  day,  however,  the  Estates  of 
the  Realm  continue  to  set  up  periodically,  with  laudable 
jealousy,  a  landmark  on  the  frontier  which  was  traced  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution.  They  solemnly  reassert  every  year 
the  doctrine  laid  down  in  the  Declaration  of  Right ;  and  they 
grant  to  the  Sovereign  an  extraordinary  power  to  govern  a 
certain  number  of  soldiers  according  to  certain  rules  for  twelve 
months  more."  —  MACAULAY:  History  of  England,  chapter  xi. 

profane  herd.    See  Horace,  Lib.  iii.  Carm.  1:  — 

Odi  profanum  vulgus  et  arceo; 
Favete  linguis :  — 

"  Ye  rabble  rout,  avaunt ! 
Your  vulgar  din  give  o'er,"  — 

The  opening  lines  of  this  paragraph  describe  only  too  well  that 
professional  politician  so  well  known  in  our  country. 

a  great  empire  and  little  minds  go  ill  together.    A 


ON  CONCILIATION   WITH   T1IE  COLONIES.      115 


sentence  that  should  be  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold  over  the 
main  entrance  to  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 

auspicate.  The  classical  imagery  in  this  word  goes  incon 
gruously  with  the  Christian  imagery  in  Sursum  corda  (Lift 
up  your  hearts).  This  ancient  Catholic  warning  (=  bidding, 
summons)  is  still  used  in  the  Communion  Service  of , the  (Prot 
estant)  Church  of  England  and  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States. 

the  dignity  of  this  high  calling.    Philippians  iii.  14. 

quod  felix,  etc.  A  Roman  invocation  of  great  antiquity. 
Concerning  it  Cicero  says  (Div.  i.  45,  102) :  maiores  nostri  .  .  . 
omnibus  rebus  agendis :  QUOD  BONUM  FAUSTUM  FELIX  FORTU- 
NATUMQUE  ESSEX  prxfabantur.  "  Our  forefathers  in  all  their 
undertakings  were  wont  to  utter  a  preliminary  prayer :  '  May 
it  turn  out  good,  favorable,  propitious,  and  fortunate.'  "  Under 
slightly  varying  forms  and  generally  abbreviated  thus,  Q.  B. 
F.  F.  Q.  S.,  this  religious  formula  has  figured  even  down  to 
our  own  time  in  legal  documents  and  formal  instruments,  espe 
cially  such  as  commemorate  human  institutions. 

To  this  speech,  as  a  whole,  no  one  can  deny  Vision,  Sin 
cerity,  Beauty: l  Vision,  because  the  speaker  saw  clearly  every 
aspect  of  his  subject;  Sincerity,  because  he  describes  it  exactly 
as  he  saw  it ;  Beauty,  because,  disregarding  a  few  minor  blem 
ishes,  his  expression  is  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  litera 
ture  as  a  fine  art.  If  the  student  cannot  perceive  and  feel 
for  himself  these  qualities,  the  critic  can  do  little  to  help  him. 
Flaws  in  the  diamond,  spots  on  the  sun,  false  notes  in  the 
music  —  these  the  critic  can  detect,  and  has  pointed  out,  in  no 
carping  spirit,  it  is  hoped ;  but  rather  that  the  learner  may  not 
be  misled,  by  the  glamour  of  a  great  name,  into  admiring  that 
which  is  not  truly  admirable,  or  be  allowed  to  forget  for  a 
moment  that  his  aim  and  object  is  nothing  less  than  the  STUDY 
OF  PERFECTION. 

1  According  to  Lewes'  well-known  classification. 


XV*  R  A  R 
/^  OF  THF 

f  UNIVERSITY 

OF 


X.C« 


LITERA  TURF.. 


ENGLISH     LITERATURE. 


Of  our  popular  list  of  classics  the  editor  of  the  Christian  Union  recently 
said:  "  We  cannot  speak  too  highly  of  the  Student?  Series  of  English 
Classics."  There  are  nearly  thirty  books  now  out  and  in  preparation,  and 
it  is  only  necessary  to  read  the  list  of  our  editors  to  gain  an  intelligent  idea 
of  the  character  of  the  work  done.  We  do  not  add  to  this  series  for  the 
sake  of  increasing  the  list,  but  we  shall  make  the  same  careful  selection  of 
authors  that  are  to  come  as  we  have  in  those  announced.  Any  book 
announced  in  this  series  will  be  worth  the  attention  of  an  instructor  in 
English  Literature. 


Painter's  Introduction  to  English  Literature,  includ 
ing  several  Classical  Works.     With  Notes. 

By  Professor  F.  V.  N.  PAINTER,  of  Roanoke  College,  Va.  Cloth. 
Pages  xviii-f-628.  Introduction  and  mailing  price,  $1.25. 

Morgan's  English  and  American  Literature. 

By  HORACE  H.  MORGAN,  LL.D.,  formerly  of  St.  Louis  High  School. 
A  practical  working  text-book  for  schools  and  colleges.  Pages  viii-|- 
261.  Introduction  price,  $1.00. 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  English  Literature. 

In  Six  Lectures.  By  Professor  GEORGE  C.  S.  SOUTHWORTH. 
Cloth.  Pages  194.  Introduction  price,  75  cents. 

The  Students'  Series  of  English  Classics. 

PRICES  REDUCED.  To  furnish  the  educational  public  with 
well-edited  editions  of  those  authors  used  in,  or  required  for  admission 
to,  many  of  the  colleges,  the  Publishers  announce  this  new  series. 

The  following  books  are  now  ready,  and  others  are  in  preparation. 

They  are  iiniformly  bound  in  cloth,  furnished  at  a  comparatively  low 
price,  and  Students  of  Literature  should  buy  such  texts  that  after  use 
in  the  class  room  will  be  found  valuable  for  the  library. 


LITER  A  TURE. 


Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner 25  cents. 

A  Ballad  Book 50        „ 

The  Merchant  of  Venice 35        „ 

Edited  by  KATHARINE  LEE  BATES,  Wellesley  College. 

Mattheiv  Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum 25        „ 

Webster's  First  Bunker  Hill  Oration 25        „ 

Milton's  L>  Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  Comus,  and  Lycidas    ...     25        „ 
Edited  by  LOUISE  MANNING  HODGKINS,  formerly  Professor 
of  English  Literature,  Wellesley  College. 

Introduction  to  the  Writings  of  John  Ruskin 50        „ 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Lord  Clive 35        ,, 

Edited  by  VIDA  D.  SCUDDER,  Wellesley  College. 

George  Eliofs  Silas  Marner 35        ,, 

Scotfs  Marmion 35        „ 

Edited  by  MARY  HARRIOTT  NORRIS,  Professor,  New  York. 
Sir  Roger  de  Cover  ley  Papers  from  The  Spectator    ....     35        „ 

Edited  by  A.  S.  ROE,  Worcester,  Mass. 

Macaulay's  Second  Essay  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham    ....     35        „ 
Edited  by  W.  W.  CURTIS,  High  School,  Pawtucket,  R.  I. 

Johnson's  History  of  Rasselas 35        ,, 

Edited  by  FRED  N.  SCOTT,  University  of  Michigan. 

Macaulay's  Essays  on  Milton  and  Addison 35  „ 

Edited  by  JAMES  CHALMERS,  Professor  of  Literature. 

Carlyle's  Diamond  Necklace 35  „ 

Edited  by  W.  A.  MOZIER,  High  School,  Ottawa,  111. 

Joan  of  Arc,  and  other  selections  from  De  Quincey       ...     35        „ 

Edited  by  HENRY  H.  BELFIELD,  Chicago  Manual  Training  School. 

Selections  from  Washington  Irving 50        „ 

Edited  by  ISAAC  THOMAS,  High  School,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Goldsmith's  Traveller  atid  Deserted  Village 25        „ 

Edited  by  W.  F.  GREGORY,  High  School,  Hartford,  Conn. 

Burke 's  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America 35        „ 

Edited  by  L.  DUPONT  SYLE,  University  of  California. 


LITER  A  TURE. 


Tennyson's  Elaine       . 25  cents. 

Edited  by  FANNIE  MORE  McCAULEY,  Instructor,  Winchester 
School,  Baltimore. 

Macaulay's  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson 25        „ 

Edited  by  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD,  Jr.,  Instructor  in  English 

Literature,  Wellesley  and  Boston. 

The  following  volumes  are  in  preparation : 

SCOTT'S   LADY  OF  THE  LAKE.     Edited  by  JAMES  ARTHUR  TUFTS, 

Phillips  Exeter  Academy. 
GOLDSMITH'S  VICAR  OF   WAKEFIELD.     Edited  by  J.  G.  RIGGS, 

School  Superintendent,  Plattsburg,  N.  Y. 
MILTON'S  PARADISE  LOST,  BOOKS  I  AND  II.     Edited  by  ALBERT 

S.  COOK,  Yale  University. 
DE  QUINCEY'S  THE  FLIGHT  OF  A  TARTAR  TRIBE.     Edited  by 

FRANK  T.  BAKER,  Teachers'  College,  New  York  City. 
CARLYLE'S   ESSAY  ON  BURNS.     Edited  by  WILLIAM  K.  WICKES, 

High  School,  Syracuse,  New  York. 
TENNYSON'S  THE    PRINCESS.     Edited  by   HENRY   W.   BOYNTON, 

Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Mass. 
LAYS   OF  ANCIENT   ROME.     Edited  by  D.  D.  PRATT,  High  School, 

Portsmouth,  Ohio. 
WORDSWORTH'S  WHITE  DOE  OF  RYLSTONE.     Edited  by  MARY 

HARRIOTT  NORRIS,  Professor  of  English  Literature. 
We  cannot  speak  too  highly  of  the   STUDENTS'   SERIES  OF   ENGLISH 
CLASSICS.—  The  Christian   Union. 


Correspondence  invited. 

LEACH,  SHEWELL,  &  SANBORN, 

BOSTON.  NEW  YORK^^        CHICAGO, 

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OF   TMt 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


JflN  30  '62  D 

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